Evaluate the Effectiveness of Toluidine Blue for Obtaining Safe Margins in Resection of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

Aims: To evaluate the effectiveness of toluidine blue for obtaining safe margins in oral squamous cell carcinoma.

Materials and methods: Intra-operatively irrigation of the lesion and its surrounding areas was done with toluidine blue solution for 20 s. Followed by irrigation with 1% acetic acid to remove all the mechanically retained stain. The unstained margins were demarcated using incision placed by no 15 BP blade. The lesion was resected with a safe margin of 1 cm away from the stained tissue. Neck dissection was done according to the nodal status. The tumor along with the resected margins was sent for histopathological examination. Statistical analysis was performed to calculate specificity of the vital stain. The cross tabulation between epithelium of the stained and unstained margins was done and subjected to Chi-square test to calculate the significance.

Results: The toluidine blue vital stain has a sensitivity of 93.33%. Out of 15 cases, 2 patients recorded positive excision margins leading to recurrence at primary site; 1 patients recorded positive excision margins leading to recurrence at secondary site; 1 patient recorded free excision margins but had recurrence at secondary site; remaining 11 patients recorded free excision margins and did not have recurrence.

Conclusion: Vital staining with toluidine blue is concluded to be specific in demarcating the dysplastic tissue adjacent to the carcinomatous lesion, which when excised along with the adjacent dysplastic tissue leads to a decrease in the recurrence in oral squamous cell carcinoma cases. Furthermore, it is inexpensive, easily available and does not add significantly to the operating time. Moreover, it provides a gross visualization of dysplasia surrounding the lesion especially in cases where in the margins are not well defined. Hence, toluidine blue can be a useful and inexpensive adjunct to identify margins intra-operatively in the current scenario where intra-operative frozen sections are not available.