FREQUENCY OF CERVICAL LYMPH NODE METASTASIS IN EARLY STAGE SQUAMOUS CELL CARCINOMA OF THE TONGUE AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH TUMOR DEPTH.

Abstract

ABSTRACT
INTRTODUCTION: Approximately half-hour of malignancies of the top and the
neck square measure oral fissure cancers and ninety-fifth of those being epithelial cell carcinomas(SCCs).  It's rated as sixth most typical cancer within the world OBJECTIVE: to see the frequency of the cervical node metastasis in an epithelial cell the malignant neoplastic disease of an oral tongue and its comparison with depth of the neoplasm to ascertain the association of the cervical nodal metastasis with completely different depth of the neoplasm.METHOD: it was a descriptive cross sectional study conducted from January 2016 till June 2017 and 85 patients with SCC of oral tongue with stage 1 or stage 2 were enrolled in study after fulfilling inclusion criteria and they all underwent resection of tumor along with ipsilateral neck dissection. Association between tumor thickness and neck nodal metastasis was calculated from final histopathology reports. RESULTS: Between January 2016 till June 2017. Total of 85 patients were enrolled and neck node metastasis was present in 28 (32%) patients. In patients with tumor thickness of >5mm it was found that out of 36 patients 28 (77.78%) patients were positive for nodal metastasis (pvalue <0.0001). CONCLUSION: Based on our study findings, it is seen that depth of tumor is strongly associated with chances of cervical lymph node metastasis and prophylactic neck dissection can play a strong role in increasing the overall survival in the early stage squamous cell carcinoma of tongue as neck node metastasis has strong impact overall disease free survival.