Background: oral cavity cancers are not uncommon types of malignancies, with surgery still a corner stone in its local control. Discrepancy between post-operative pathological findings and pre-operative ones are eminent feature in this malignancy group, which in turn needs to be considered in tailoring management plan

Methods: 39 patients with oral cavity cancers were included in the study after fulfilling the inclusion criteria. Pre-operative assessment was fulfilled, operative intervention was properly delivered, then post-operative pathological assessment was done with discrepancies reported.

Results: demographic and pathological data were tabulated for all patients, then on showing discrepancies different factors were assessed to determine which of them will help in predicting it. Alcoholism and patients age were proved to be these factors in this study (both showed p=0.02)

Conclusions: In this study discrepancy between pre- and post-operative findings in oral cavity malignancy could be proved especially in tumour grade and lymph node invasion.