Comparison of three postoperative follow-up methods in patients with oral cancer.

The goal of this research was to determine the existence of the significant time differences in the identification of the recurrences and neck metastases in the patients surgically treated for the oral cavity cancer by comparing three postoperative follow up methods. The study included 286 patients surgically treated for oral and pharyngeal cancer in period from 1991 to 2007 at three different institutions, divided into three groups based on the different postoperative follow up protocol. In this study we were able to show that the period of identification of recurrences and neck metastases was significantly shorter in the group of patients whose follow up included neck ultrasound, along with methods of inspection and palpation of the oral cavity and the neck. In conclusion, implementation of more contemporary methods such as the neck ultrasound is needed along with usual follow up methods, such as inspection and palpation of the oral cavity and the neck. Also, follow up of the patients surgically treated for the oral cavity cancer should be conducted systematically. Ultrasound examination of the neck should be recommended due to its low cost, harmlessness, possible frequent usage, high quality visual imaging and possibility of combination with the fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) of the suspicious lymph nodes.

Examining the presence of ABO(H) antigens of blood types in the saliva of patients with oral cancer.

Number of researches dealing with the influence of the ABO blood group antigens on the development of the oral cancer have hypothesized that people who do not secrete these substances in the saliva are more prone to suffer from this disease. The objective of this research is to examine this hypothesis. In total 114 subjects were examined, half of which suffered from oral cancer, while the other half was the healthy control group. All examinees were subjected to clinical examinations and the experimental group to pathohistological examination. An analysis of the secretor status was carried out using the Wiener agglutination test. The experimental group consisted of 78.95% of secretors, while the control group consisted of 82.46% of secretors. This difference is not statistically significant. The starting hypothesis that non-secretors are more prone to the development of oral cancer was not confirmed.