Prognosticators and Management of Oral Tongue Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Background: Worldwide, oral cancer is ranked as the fifth most fatal cancer. It has different clinical presentations, specifically, patients with tongue cancer typically present with a sore or a lump. The treatment depends on the stage, with single modality treatment being the most used for stage I and II tumors, and combined treatment being used most of advanced stages. Methodology: This is a retrospective study done in Khartoum Dental Teaching Hospital on patients diagnosed with tongue squamous cell carcinoma from 2011 to 2019. Results: A total of 69 patients were included in this study, 58% of the patients were females and 42% were males. The majority of the patients were stage IV (66.7%), followed by stage III (18.8%), and only (7.2%) were at stage II. Most of the patients received surgical treatment (52.2%) with (15.9%) having adjuvant therapy and (18.8%) had both, segmental resection was the most common surgical resection in this study followed by soft tissue and marginal resection (43.5%, 15.9%, and 2.9% respectively). The surgical margins were negative in (37.7%), positive in (11.5%) and close in (1.4%). There was a perineural invasion in (21.7%) and was absent in (65.2%), microscopic depth of invasion was >or equal to 4mm in (52.2%), >4mm in (1.4%) and <4mm in (10.1%). The overall survival rate for the patients in this study was (45%). Conclusion: The current study showed that the most common site of this cancer was the lateral part of the tongue. Also, an increase in the incidence of tongue cancer among adults of 40 to 60 years old was found. Most of the patients in this study were at a late stage. Ulcerative swelling was the most common clinical feature. Moreover, surgical treatment was the most common treatment done to the patients and the overall survival rate of the patients was 45%.