Clinicopathological factors related to cervical lymph node metastasis in a patient with carcinoma of the oral floor.

Conclusion: Tumors developing into the muscle layer and tumor thickness > or =5 mm are the most important risk factors associated with nodal metastasis.

Objective: It is necessary to identify the risk factors associated with cervical metastasis in patients with oral floor cancer to reveal the role of elective neck dissection for oral floor cancer.

Patients and methods: Forty-eight patients with oral floor cancer were retrospectively analyzed for a correlation between clinicopathologic factors and cervical lymph node metastasis using Fisher's exact test and a logistic regression test.

Results: Univariate analysis showed significantly positive correlations for growth type, mitosis, perineural invasion, vascular invasion, lymphatic invasion, depth, thickness, and infiltration growth ratio. Multivariate analysis had a significantly positive correlation with nest formation and depth in all patients, and with thickness in patients with T1 or T2. In patients with bilateral cervical lymph node metastasis, lymph node metastasis was significantly positively correlated with perineural invasion.