Clinical Studies on The lymph node Metastasis of Tongue Carcinomas

We investigated the patterns of cervical lymph node metastasis in the patients with tongue carcinoma who were treated in our institute from 1988 to 1994 and discussed how to deal with the cervical lymph nodes in the patients. The lymph nodes in the submandibular region and in the jugular chain were the main targets of the subsequent metastasis in T1 and T2N0 patients. The salvage rate with surgery was higher than that with radiation therapy in the patients with this type of metastasis. The prophylactic irradiation to the neck seems to be useless because the subsequent metastasis was often observed in the area of the external radiation An en-bloc operation with neck dissection should be conducted for the T2 and T3N0 patients with the tumor invaded deeply into the tongue. A careful neck dissection is required when the tumor invades into the anterior or posterior part of the tongue, or when the lymph node metastasis was found. In these cases, the effort should be made to detect metastasis to the lymph nodes in the other side of the neck.