Relationship between appearance of tongue carcinoma on intraoral ultrasonography and histopathologic findings.

Objective: To clarify whether intraoral ultrasonography (I-US) is effective for predicting metastasis of tongue cancer to the cervical lymph nodes.

Methods: Participants comprised 29 patients with tongue carcinoma classified as T1-T4 using the TNM staging system. All patients underwent I-US preoperatively. Postoperatively, resected specimens were evaluated histopathologically.

Results: I-US found that cases with invasive depth ≥3 mm had higher potential for cervical lymph node metastasis than those with invasive depth <3 mm (P < .05). No other significant relationships were identified between observations on I-US and cervical lymph node metastasis. Cases with histopathologic blood vessel infiltration or lymph duct infiltration had a significant difference in risk of cervical lymph node metastasis.

Conclusions: I-US is useful for preoperatively assessing the invasive depth of tongue carcinoma. Furthermore, observations from I-US and invasive depth of the tumor allowed presumptive diagnosis with regard to cervical lymph node metastasis.