title: Relationships between Tumor Volume and Lymphatic Metastasis and Prognosis in Early Oral Tongue Cancer.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Although T stage is an important prognostic tool for oral tongue cancer, it fails to define the depth of invasion and true three-dimensional volume of primary tumors. The purpose of this paper is to determine the relations between tumor volume and lymph node metastasis and survival in early oral tongue cancer.
  
  
  METHODS
  Forty-seven patients with T1-2 tongue cancer were included. Tumor volumes were measured by the computerized segmentation of T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The overall average tumor volume was 27.7 cm(3) (range, 1.4 to 60.1 cm(3)). A significant positive correlation was found between tumor volume and pathological T stage, depth of invasion, and cervical lymph node metastasis (P<0.001, P<0.001, and P=0.002, respectively). When the tumor volume exceeded 20 cm(3), the cervical metastasis rate increased to 69.2%. The overall 5-year disease specific survival rate was 80%. There was a statistically significant association between large tumor volume (≥20 cm(3)) and the 5-year disease-specific survival (P=0.046).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Tumor volume larger than 20 cm(3) was associated with greater risk cervical lymph node metastasis and poor 5-year disease-specific survival rate in early oral tongue cancer patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, The Catholic University of Korea College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Young-Hoon
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Joo
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, The Catholic University of Korea College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Se-Hwan
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Hwang
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, The Catholic University of Korea College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Dong-Il
authors.initials: DI
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, The Catholic University of Korea College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Kwang-Jae
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, The Catholic University of Korea College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Jun-Ook
authors.initials: JO
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, The Catholic University of Korea College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Min-Sik
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Kim
keywords: Computer-assisted image processing; Lymphatic metastasis; Magnetic resonance imaging; Tongue neoplasms; Tumor burden