Present status and controversial issues in the treatment of tongue cancer in a questionnaire survey

Abstract

As the first step of making a guideline of the treatment for tongue cancer, a questionnaire survey had been made in order to obtain a present status of the treatment in Japan. The results and controversial issues of 75 respondents are reported.
Total 5, 960 cases of tongue cancer were treated in the 75 institutions in the past 10 years (1995-2004) . T2 cases amounted to 45.7% of them (2, 700 cases) and N0 to 73.9% (4, 360) .
In surgical treatments, as the indication to methods of glossectomy, neck dissection for cervical lymph node metastasis and reconstruction of the tongue was almost common in each institution, making of the standardized guideline for surgical treatment seems to be possible.
On the other hand, the purpose and practical criteria of the indication for the pre- and postoperative chemoradiotherapy vary considerably in each institution. Thus, the standardization of the criteria of the indication for adjuvant chemoradiotherapy is mandatory and it seems to be the difficult task in making the guideline. In any case, the guideline must include treatments with high quality of evidence.