Tongue pressure in patients with tongue cancer resection and reconstruction

Objective

Assessment of tongue function following tongue reconstruction is important to evaluate patient status. To assess tongue function in patients who had undergone tongue reconstruction, the surgical team used a simple, hand-held tongue pressure measurement device to measure tongue power.

Methods

Tongue power of 30 patients (25 males, 5 females; average age: 53.6 ± 15.0 years) was calculated using a hand-held tongue pressure measurement device, six months postoperation. The defects were classified into minimal glossectomy (MG) (n = 8), near-half partial glossectomy of the mobile tongue (PG) (n = 5), hemi-glossectomy (HG) (n = 4), more than half partial glossectomy of the mobile tongue (SG-MT) (n = 7), and subtotal glossectomy (SG) (n = 6). As seen in other tongue assessments, a simple articulatory test, food evaluation, and speech intelligibility assessment were also performed; resulting correlations were statistically calculated using tongue pressure values.

Results

The tongue pressure values were 94.0 ± 14.5% in MG, 48.5 ± 13.2^a % in PG, 40.4 ± 18.7^a % in HG, 19.3 ± 7.7^a,b % in SG-MT, and 15.3 ± 5.6^a,b % in SG (a: <0.05 vs. MG, b: <0.05 vs. PG). The Pearson r was 0.77, 0.67, and 0.74 when correlated with simple articulatory test, food evaluation, and speech intelligibility assessment, respectively.

Conclusion

Tongue pressure measurement in patients with tongue cancer resection and reconstruction facilitated determination of patients’ tongue function status.