Treatment of clinical N0 neck tumours is controversial in early-stage oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), possibly because T1N0M0 and T2N0M0 merge together at early stages. The purposes of this study were to compare survival outcomes only for T2N0M0 cases based upon treatment elective neck dissection versus neck observation. | Wushou et al. BMC Cancer 2021 21 1309 https s12885-021-09053-3 RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access Elective neck dissection improves the survival of patients with T2N0M0 oral squamous cell carcinoma a study of the SEER database Alimujiang Wushou1 2 Feiluore Yibulayin3 Lu Sheng1 2 Yuan Luo1 2 and Zhi cheng Yang1 2 Abstract Background Treatment of clinical N0 neck tumours is controversial in early-stage oral squamous cell carcinoma OSCC possibly because T1N0M0 and T2N0M0 merge together at early stages. The purposes of this study were to compare survival outcomes only for T2N0M0 cases based upon treatment elective neck dissection versus neck observation. Methods T2N0M0 OSCC cases were identified in the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results database of the United States National Cancer Institute between 2004 and 2015. Survival curves for different variable values were generated using Kaplan-Meier estimates and compared using the log-rank test. Variables that achieved significance at P Wushou et al. BMC Cancer 2021 21 1309 Page 2 of 8 prognostic factor in survival is the presence of lymph Methods node metastasis. It has been reported that cervical Study cohort lymph node metastasis and extranodal extension are The study population was extracted from the Surveil- prerequisites for distant metastasis development 4 . lance Epidemiology and End Results SEER database of The existence of cervical lymph node metastasis the United States National Cancer Institute using its soft- demonstrates the most important clinico-pathological ware https seer. cancer. gov SEER Stat . Patients prognostic factor. The presence of even one positive were identified via the International Classification of cervical lymph node is associated with a 50 reduc- Diseases for Oncology Third Edition ICD-O-3 as pre- tion in the OS 5 . Thus appropriate treatment of the viously described 12 . Briefly the OSCC cases were cervical lymph node is as important as treating the selected through
