Salvage surgery for recurrent oral and oropharyngeal carcinoma

ABSTRACT

Local and regional recurrences are the main sites of treatment failure in patients with oral and oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma. Treatment failure depends fundamentally on tumor biologic behavior, previous treatment and the initial clinical stage. The rates of loco-regional recurrences range from 25 to 48%, and distant metastasis rarely occur in an isolated manner. When recurrent cancer is significant and there are no distant metastasis salvage surgery is the most widely used treatment approach. Most of these patients were previously treated with radiotherapy. Therefore, when recurrence occurs, salvage surgery is the only possible treatment option with curative intent. The aim of this study was to review the data in the literature regarding results of salvage surgical treatment for patients with recurrent oral and oropharyngeal carcinomas