Abstract
During the 10-year period from 1990 to 1999, 148 cases of malignant tumors in the oral and maxillof acial regions were seen and treated at the Department of Oral and Maxillof acial Surgery at Saga Medical School. They were reviewed and clinically analyzed.
The male-to-female ratio was 1.8 to 1, and the mean age was 65.5 years. The most commonly affected site in the oral cavity was the tongue (37.2%), followed, in descending order of frequency, by the gingiva (33.1%), floor of the mouth (11.5%), buccal mucosa (8.8%), the palate (6.1%), and so on. Histopathologically, 127 (85.8%) of the cases were diagnosed as squamous cell carcinoma.
According to TNM classification of UICC (1997), 0.7% of patients were classified into Tis, 24.5% into T1, 35.0% into T2, 12.6% into T3, and 27.2% into T4. Fifty-seven patients had a clinically positive neck, and two patients had distant metastasis. A total 0.7% of patients were clinically staged as stage 0, 21.7% as stage I, 22.4% as stage II, 18.2% as stage III, and 37.0% as stage IV.
Sixty-three patients were treated with a combination of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery, which was predominant in all cases. Kaplan-Meier survival curves showed that the cumulative survival rate of all the patients was 63.1% for 5 years, and 68.6% in the curative treatment group of malignant tumor patients.
