Management of Contralateral N0 Neck in Tonsillar Squamous Cell Carcinomas

Lim, Young Chang; Lee, Sei Young; Lim, Jae Yol; Ahn, Jae Yoon; Seo, Hyung Seok; Choi, Young Choon; Lee, Jin Seok; Koo, Bon Seok; Choi, Eun Chang

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
It is well established that tonsillar squamous cell carcinoma has high probability to be disseminated to the neck. An ipsilateral neck treatment is mandatory during initial treatment stages of II-IV tonsillar carcinomas. However, no consensus exists as to whether an elective contralateral neck management should be performed. SUBJECTS AND METHOD: A retrospective analysis was performed on 43 N1-3 tonsillar cancer patients with contralateral negative necks who were treated between 1992 to 2002. All patients had a contralateral elective neck dissection. Surgical treatment was followed by postoperative radiotherapy in 33 patients. The follow-up period ranged from 2 to 120 months (mean, 38 months). The Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank test were used to calculate the disease-specific survival rates and prognostic significance of contralateral occult lymph node metastasis. RESULTS: Clinically occult, but pathologically positive contralateral lymph nodes were found in 16% (7 of 43). In cases of ipsilateral N (+) neck, contralateral occult lymph node metastases developed in 21% (7 of 33) and there was no incidence of that in the cases of ipsilateral N0 necks. Based on the clinical stages of the tumor, 5% (1 of 22) of the cases metastatically involved ymph nodes in the T2 tumors, 36% (5 of 14) in the T3, and 25% (1 of 4) in the T4. T1 tumors (3 cases) had no pathologically positive lymph nodes (T1+T2 vs T3+T4, p<.05). Patients with no evidence of contralateral nodal cancer had significantly improved disease-specific free survival rates over patients with any pathologically positive nodes (5 year disease specific survival rate, 92% vs 28%, p=<.05). CONCLUSION: The risk of contralateral occult neck involvement in above T3 staged tonsillar squamous cell carcinomas with unilateral metastases was high and patients who presented with contralateral metastatic neck have worse prognosis than those who are staged as N0. Therefore, we advocate a routine bilateral neck dissection in tonsillar squamous cell carcinoma patients with unilateral node metastases.