The relapse patterns and outcome of postoperative recurrent tongue cancer

Purpose: The relapse patterns and salvage treatment results for patients who developed locoregional recurrence after surgery for squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue were retrospectively analyzed. Materials and Methods: Between April 1986 and January 1995, 77 cases with recurrent squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue were evaluated. Most of them were males in the early stages of initial disease. Although the surgical margins were negative in most cases (67 of 77), relapse eventually occurred. The relapse patterns showed 15 patients with primary recurrence, 45 patients with regional neck lymph node (LN) relapse, and 17 patients with relapse in both sites. Results: Salvage treatment was given to most of the patients, but their median survival time was only 9 months. Survival data were analyzed and compared with different types of relapse patterns, salvage treatments, disease-free intervals, age, and sex. In multivariate analysis, the neck LN relapse and shorter relapse-free interval (< 6 months) were poor prognostic factors (P < .05), and surgical treatment showed a trend for better salvage results (P = .0575). In multivariate analysis, patients with neck LN relapse had the worst outcome (P < .05). Conclusions: Recurrence of tongue cancer is not uncommon, but there are little data in literature regarding the prognosis. Although this study showed poor salvage results, various prognoses could be predicted on the bases of the different relapse patterns and salvage methods.