Abstract
Purpose: We performed a clinical study to evaluate the N classification.
Materials and methods: 281 cases of primary oral squamous cell carcinoma, which were surgically resected with neck dissection, were selected. Cases with pre-operative radiotherapy or that recurred after the surgery, were excluded.
Clinical examination and images such as US, CT, MRI, and PET/CT were used to diagnose metastasis of neck lymph nodes.
We studied the concordance rate of the clinical classification (cN), which expresses the existence and developed area of neck lymph node metastasis, and histopathological classification (pN). We also examined the accuracy of diagnostic tools.
Results: The concordance rate of cN and pN classification was 60.5％. cN1 showed the lowest concordance (30.2％).
The highest specificity of diagnostic accuracy was US, 86.3％, and the highest sensitivity was PET/CT, 74.7％.
Conclusions: It is necessary to select diagnostic tools based on their characteristics for accurate diagnosis for N classification.
