Clinical study of stage I/II squamous cell carcinoma of the oral tongue

—Indications for prophylactic neck dissection

Abstract

To evaluate the usefulness of prophylactic neck dissection for stage I/II squamous cell carcinoma of the oral tongue, 110 previously untreated patients with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the oral tongue were retrospectively studied. The 5-year disease-specific survival rate did not differ between stage I (87.1%) and stage II (83.4%). The five-year disease-specific survival rates were 85.9% in well differentiated SCC, 83.9% in moderately differentiated SCC, and 70.7% in poorly differentiated SCC, respectively. Thirty-three of the 110 patients had recurrences, 17 of which were salvaged successfully. Two of the 52 cases in stage I and 33 of the 58 cases in stage II were treated with ipsi-lateral supra-omohyoidal neck dissection (SOND) as their initial treatment. Four of the 33 (18.8%) patients who were treated with prophylactic neck dissection had recurrences, while 13 of the 25 (52.0%) patients without SOND had recurrences. The 5-year disease-specific survival rate did not differ between patients with SOND (80.9%) and those without SOND (79.5%). These results suggest that prophylactic SOND for stage I/II SCC of the oral tongue does not improve their prognosis.