Clinical outcome of 205 head and neck squamous cell carcinomas

This retrospective study was carry out to asses the clinical outcome a series of 205 histologically proven squamous cell carcinomas of head and neck treated at the Plastic Surgery Units, Ferrara University, Italy in the period between January 2005 and December 2010. There were 64 (31.2%) females and 141 (68.8%) males, age ranged from 40 to 102 years with a mean value of 82 years (standard deviation +/- 11 years). There were 127 (62%) T1 and 78 (38.7%) T2. Surgical technique was a resection and immediate suturing in 203 (99%) cases whereas resection plus graft was used in 2 (1.0%) patients. None had positive neck nodes (N0) and neck dissection was not performed. Histologically positive margins were detected in 34 (16.6%) cases and a second surgery was needed. Chi square text was used to detect those variables (i.e. T, type of surgery and site) potentially associated with positive margins. None of the studied variables was statistically correlated with positive margins. Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma is frequent in elderly and wide resection is mandatory since tumor is wider than clinical appearance shows.