Can One Predict the Incidence of Metastasis in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma Patients Using Tumor Thickness?

Aim: The present study was undertaken with the purpose to assess the correlation between the presence of lymph node metastases and the size of tumor and the thickness of the tumor mass.
Methods: The study included 80 consecutive cases of oral squamous cell carcinoma, who underwent radical neck dissection. The various level of lymph nodes in these cases were checked for metastases, which was then correlated with the size of tumor and the thickness of the tumor.
Results: In this study it was revealed that there is a statistically non-significant (p = 0.3204) correlation between size of the tumor and regional cervical lymph node metastases, but a significant correlation (p = 0.0148) between thickness of the tumor and regional cervical lymph node metastases was observed.
Conclusion: Thus we conclude that the tumor thickness was more in cases with skip metastasis than in cases without skip metastasis and tumors greater than 10mm in thickness have more chances of regional metastases.