Treatment of patients with clinically lymph node-negative squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate treatment outcome and to determine optimal treatment strategy for patients with clinically lymph node-negative (N0) oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma (SCC).


METHODS
Two hundred and twenty-seven patients with oral cavity SCC received radiotherapy with curative intent. We retrospectively analyzed 69 patients with clinically N0 disease. Forty-three patients were treated with surgery followed by radiotherapy (S+EBRT) and 26 with radiotherapy alone (EBRT). The median doses administered were 63.0 Gy for S+EBRT and 70.2 Gy for EBRT.


RESULTS
The rates of occult metastasis were 60% for T1, 69% for T2, 100% for T3 and 39% for T4, respectively, among patients who underwent neck dissection. A contralateral occult metastasis occurred only in two patients. The median follow-up was 39 months (range, 6-170 months). The 5-year overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS), local control (LC) and regional control (RC) rates for all patients were 56, 50, 66 and 79%, respectively. The 5-year OS, DFS, LC and RC rates were 67/39% (P < 0.01), 66/24% (P < 0.01), 87/30% (P < 0.01) and 73/89% (P = 0.11) for S+EBRT/EBRT, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
The risk for occult neck metastasis is high in patients with oral cavity SCC; therefore, elective neck treatment should be considered. Excellent RC for subclinical disease can be achieved with radiotherapy alone. However, external beam radiotherapy alone to primary tumor resulted in poor LC and combined treatment with surgery and radiotherapy appeared to be a better treatment strategy.
Department of Radiation Oncology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 28 Yongon-dong, Chongno-gu, Seoul 110-744, Republic of Korea.
Won Il
WI
Jang
Hong-Gyun
HG
Wu
Charn Il
CI
Park
Kwang Hyun
KH
Kim
Myoung-Whun
MW
Sung
Myung-Jin
MJ
Kim
Pill-Hoon
PH
Choung
Jong-Ho
JH
Lee
Jin-Yong
JY
Choi
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000532:radiotherapy / Q000556:secondary / Q000601:surgery / Q000628:therapy*; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009062:Mouth Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology / Q000532:radiotherapy / Q000601:surgery / Q000628:therapy*; D037981:Neck Dissection; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D016609:Neoplasms, Second Primary; D011379:Prognosis; D011879:Radiotherapy Dosage; D018714:Radiotherapy, Adjuvant; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D016019:Survival Analysis; D017211:Treatment Failure; D016896:Treatment Outcome