Abstract
At the 40th annual meeting of the Japanese Society of Oral Oncology, a workshop entitled “Can imaging accurately determine the resection margin？” discussed the discrepancies between imaging and histopathology in the evaluation of invasion depth of oral cancer.
A case of gingival carcinoma of the mandible, in which bone display CT images underestimated the bone marrow invasion, was presented. Retrospectively, it was speculated that 18F-FDG PET/CT might be significant in the evaluation of invasion depth of tumor tissue in bone marrow of the mandible. Additionally, texture analysis of PET/CT might be a promising method for deciding the treatment strategy in gingival carcinoma.
Although intraoral ultrasonography has been shown to be accurate in measuring the depth of invasion in T1/T2 tongue carcinoma, standardization of the examination method would be needed for dissemination of this beneficial technique.
Histopathologically, it is suggested that modern imaging techniques already have enough accuracy in the evaluation of invasion depth of oral cancer. Moreover, from the viewpoint of treatment outcomes, clinicians should note that histopathological information is also as important as the invasion depth.
