Seventeen year's experience in the treatment of carcinoma of the mobile tongue

Two hundred and forty-two patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the mobile tongue were reviewed. Most of them were initially treated by irradiation and then treated surgically for salvage. Cervical node metastases were frequently developed during or after the initial therapy. The patients in the advanced stage showed poor prognosis due to uncontrolled cervical node metastases and/or local recurrence. In the patients with no initial cervical node involvement, better local control and less frequent incidence of subsequently developed cervical node metastases were observed in the group treated by surgery than in those treated by irradiation. In the patients with initial cervical node involvement, no significant difference was noted in the survival yielded by either treatment modality. In advanced carcinoma, combined treatment with radiotherapy and surgical therapy seemed to give better results than with either radiotherapy or surgical therapy alone in this study.