The conservation neck dissection.

This study compares the neck tumor recurrence rate between patients treated with radical neck dissection and those treated with conservation neck dissection. A standard radical neck dissection modified by sparing at least the internal jugular vein or the spinal accessory nerve is defined as a conservation dissection. Six hundred ninety-one neck dissections performed on 631 patients in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery of the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago were reviewed retrospectively. All patients had been followed postoperatively for at least 24 months. Group I consisted of 422 radical neck dissections. Group II contained 269 conservation neck dissections. We found no statistically significant difference in the rate of neck recurrence between the group of patients who underwent radical neck dissection and the group who underwent conservation neck dissection.