Objective: To evaluate the liability of sentinel node biopsy in the treatment of early stage oral tongue carcinoma with clinically negative neck.
Methods: Eighteen patients with T1 or T2 oral tongue carcinoma were enrolled in the prospective study. Preoperative lymphoscintigraphy and intra-operative hand-held gamma probe techniques were used to detect the sentinel lymph nodes. The sentinel lymph node biopsies were sent to frozen section pathology and the results were compared with specimen of routine selective neck dissection (I ∼ III or I ∼ IV). The accuracy of cervical metastasis prediction was compared between sentinel node biopsy and tumor thickness.
Results: Sentinel lymph nodes were identified in all 18 cases. The numbers of sentinel lymph nodes of level Ib, IIa and III were 6, 22 and 2, respectively. In this series, positive sentinel lymph nodes were revealed in 4 cases, which were also positive in the postoperative routine histology.In other cases, both sentinel lymph nodes and routine histology were negative. Both the sensitivity and specificity were 100%. Sentinel lymph node biopsy obviously improved the specificity of predicting cervical metastasis comparing with the tumor thickness. (100% vs. 36.4%).
Conclusion: Sentinel node biopsy is effective and reliable in the treatment of early stage oral tongue cancer, and deserves clinical application.