Background: The occult neck metastasis rate is very high with tongue cancers.
Objectives: To evaluate the present effect of elective neck dissection (END) in treatment of early-stage oral tongue tumors with emphasis on metastasis of lymph node. In addition, effects of END on regional or systemic disease recurrence and survival were investigated.
Subjective: This retrospective study included patients with stage I and II tongue cancer recruited from maxillofacial and plastic surgery department Alexandria university over five years(2015-2020) The collected data were analyzed for disease free survival (DFS) and recurrence rate.
Results: This study was carried out on 100 patients accessible to the maxillofacial and Plastic Surgery Department, Alexandria University, with oral tongue cancer but only 45 were diagnosed clinically and radiologically as first stage (stage I, stage II). Smokers were presented as 65% of studied sample. Greatest lesions were dealt with by surgery, either by wide local excision (40%) or hemiglossectomy (60%). Treatment of neck findings was either by neck dissection (75.5%) or “wait and see" (24.5%). The rates for local and nodal recurrence were 8.8% and 20.0%, respectively. Study of relations between disease free survival and other studied parameters showed a significance for acceptance of adjuvant management and the dissected lymph node status.
Conclusion: END should be done routinely in patients with early-stage oral malignant tumor tongue.