OBJECTIVETo discuss the treatment of cN(0) tongue carcinoma patients.

METHODS185 cases of the mobile tongue carcinoma patients (male 102, female 83, aged 28 to 88) treated with surgery from 1988.5 to 1995.6 had been followed up and retrospectively analyzed. Extensive resection of the primary tumors and neck dissections were performed, and all the samples were pathological positive.

RESULTSThe cervical lymphatic node metastasis rates for stage I-II, III-IV disease, grade I, II disease were 16.66%, 38.05%, 17.42% and 37.50% respectively. And the rates were 9.00%, 31.37% and 55.55% for submucous infiltration, muscle infiltration and perineural infiltration, respectively. The overall 5 year survival was 72.43%, and the 5 year specific survival rate was 44.44% and 83.96% for those having or not having cervical node metastasis. The levels of 29 patients with positive node metastasis for 148 cN(0) patients were submandibular and submental lymphatic nodes (22.64%), superior deep cervical lymphatic nodes (35.84%), middle deep cervical lymphatic nodes (26.41%), inferior deep cervical lymphatic nodes (15.09%), posterior neck lymphatic nodes (0.00%). The over all 5 year survival rates for selective neck dissection were 85.13% and 21.62% in therapeutic dissection (chi(2) = 29.73, P < 0.01). Patients performed selective neck dissection the rates were 68.96% and 89.07% respectively with or without lymphatic node metastasis. Comparably the 5-year rate was only 20.00% for the patients performed the therapeutic dissection with lymphatic node metastasis.

CONCLUSIONS(1) cN(0) patients should be observed carefully in stage I, and the selective dissection must be performed in stage II-IV. (2) Supraomohyoid ND is essential for T(2) patients, and functional ND is essential for T(3 - 4) patients. (3) There is correlation between cervical metastasis and the stage, grade or infiltration of tongue cancer (P < 0.05). The prognosis could be expected from these factors.