Background: The benefit of postoperative radiotherapy (PORT) for early squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue (SCCOT) with pathologic N1 disease remains unclear.
Methods: The medical records of all patients with pathologic T1-2/N0-1 SCCOT who underwent wide excision of the primary tumor and neck dissection between 1980 and 2002 were reviewed.
Results: There were 59 patients analyzed, including 28 patients with and 31 patients without PORT. The 5-year disease-free survival rates were 81.2% and 53% for the patients with and without PORT, respectively (p = .03). The overall 5-year survival rates were 77% and 70.5% for the patients with and without PORT, respectively (p = .36). Multivariate analyses showed that PORT had the only protective effect (p = .01) and extracapsular spread (ECS) was the only significantly adverse factor for locoregional recurrence (p = .03).
Conclusions: Approximately one-third of the patients who received only surgery had locoregional recurrence. PORT significantly improved the disease-free survival.