ENT Updates

Clinical Research

Incidence of occult lymph node metastasis in patients with head and neck cancer

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https://doi.org/10.2399/jmu.2016001008
Kırat, O., Özgür Pınarbaşlı, M., Kezban Gürbüz, M., Kaya, E., & Özüdoğru, E. (2016). Incidence of occult lymph node metastasis in patients with head and neck cancer. ENT Updates, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.2399/jmu.2016001008
Volume 6 Issue 1 (2016)
Copyright (c) 2016 Onur Kırat, Mehmet Özgür Pınarbaşlı, Melek Kezban Gürbüz, Ercan Kaya, Erkan Özüdoğru
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Authors

  • Onur Kırat Department of ENT, Faculty of Medicine, Eskişehir Osmangazi University, Eskişehir, Turkey
  • Mehmet Özgür Pınarbaşlı
    Department of ENT, Faculty of Medicine, Eskişehir Osmangazi University, Eskişehir, Turkey
  • Melek Kezban Gürbüz Department of ENT, Faculty of Medicine, Eskişehir Osmangazi University, Eskişehir, Turkey
  • Ercan Kaya Department of ENT, Faculty of Medicine, Eskişehir Osmangazi University, Eskişehir, Turkey
  • Erkan Özüdoğru Department of ENT, Faculty of Medicine, Eskişehir Osmangazi University, Eskişehir, Turkey

Objective: The objective of the study is to determine the incidence of occult lymph node metastasis detected in patients with head and neck cancer who applied to our clinic.

Methods: Medical files of 107 patients who had been diagnosed as head and neck cancer between 2007 and 2012 were retrospectively examined. The patients who were accepted as N0 both clinically and radiologically at the time of diagnosis and those who had undergone neck dissection in addition to the treatment of primary tumor were included in the study. The patients were grouped based on the diagnosis of the primary tumor. Histopathology results of the patients and those with lymph node metastasis were documented. The proportion of the patients with occult lymph node metastases was calculated and primary tumor sites with a higher probability of occult lymph node metastases were determined.

Results: A total of 64 patients were included in the study who were diagnosed as laryngeal (n=42; 65.6%), oral cavity (n=15; 23.4%), parotid gland (n=5; 7.8%), nasal cavity (n=1; 1.5%) and auricular (n=1; 1.5%) carcinomas. Histopathologically lymph node metastases were detected in patients with laryngeal (n=12; 70.5%), oral cavity (n=4; 23.5%) and parotid gland (n=1; 5.8%) carcinomas. Laryngeal cancers were subdivided into supraglottic (n=4), transglottic (n=7) and glottic (n=1) cancers. The highest rate of metastasis was detected in patients with transglottic laryngeal carcinoma.

Conclusion: Occult lymph node metastasis is an important issue which should be kept in mind in cases with head and neck cancers. Location of primary tumor is an effective influential factor concerning this issue. As a result of this study, we thought that occult lymph node metastases are frequently seen in patients with transglottic laryngeal cancers.

Keywords:

Head and neck carcinoma neck dissection occult lymph node metastasis