Oncological outcomes of total glossectomy procedure for advanced tongue cancer: a single-centre experience.

Surgeons treating advanced carcinoma of the tongue with total glossectomy face many conflicts in view of the morbidity and poor functional and survival outcomes following surgery. It is pertinent to study the patients undergoing total tongue compartment resection as a separate cohort to analyse their outcomes. This study investigated the oncological outcomes of 150 patients with advanced tongue squamous cell carcinoma who underwent total glossectomy. The results suggest that compartment resection significantly improved local control, irrespective of margin status. The presence of multiple positive nodes was found to be an independent poor prognostic factor, and adjuvant radiation significantly improved survival. Total glossectomy is feasible and safe in both the primary and salvage setting and should be considered as the surgical option for advanced tongue cancer.

Dermal metastases in oral cancer after curative treatment: a single institution cohort study.

Dermal metastasis (DM) is, by definition, the involvement of the skin by cancer cells that originate from cancer elsewhere in the body. The skin is considered a rare site of distant failure in head and neck cancer and DM is the bearer of a poor outcome. Literature about it is limited so this study was undertaken to analyse the factors associated with its incidence and outcomes. A prospectively maintained database on operated cases of oral cancer at a tertiary cancer centre was analysed, and patients who developed dermal metastases during follow up were evaluated. Factors that contributed to early DM and predicted survival after its development were studied. A total of 68 patients (2.8%) had DM as the first presentation of recurrence after a median disease-free period of five months. Early DM was significantly associated with skin involvement by the primary tumour at the time of presentation (p=0.06), extracapsular extension of nodes (p=0.004), and with those who required adjuvant chemotherapy in view of aggressive histology (p=0.021). Median (range) survival after the detection of DM was 97 (5-328) days (3.25 months). Surgical excision of isolated cases was associated with significantly increased survival after detection (p=0.05). Whenever it is feasible without too much morbidity, solitary DM should be excised.