Retrospective Study of Anterior Tongue SCC

This retrospective study included patients with SCCT who underwent surgery-based treatment at our institution between January 2013 and December 2020. Patients without clinical evidence of lymph node metastasis (N−) usually underwent selective neck dissection, whereas those with lymph node metastasis (N +) underwent modified radical neck dissection^{24 (link),25 (link)}. Clinicopathological data, including histopathology and surgical records, were retrieved from the patient’s medical records, and the follow-up time was set from the date of surgery to death, loss of visit, or May 2022. Given that the etiology and prognosis of squamous cell carcinoma in the posterior part of the tongue are different from those of the anterior part, only the anterior two-thirds of the tongue was studied in the present research. The inclusion criteria were (1) diagnosis of SCCT based on preoperative imaging and postoperative pathology; (2) no preoperative chemotherapy, radiotherapy, immunotherapy, or endocrine therapy; (3) first onset and treatment occurring during the study period; (4) no distant metastasis detected before surgery; and (5) complete clinical and pathological data. Patients were excluded from the study if they had incomplete records, were lost to follow-up, or had concomitant malignant tumors or a malignant tumor history.
This study was carried out following the Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans that were further updated, and the protocol was reviewed and approved by the Medical ethics committee of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University(no. 274, 2022). All procedures conducted in studies involving human participants met the ethical standards of the Institutional Research Committee. Informed consent was obtained from all patients. All methods were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations.