Experience of the Curie Institute in treatment of cancer of the mobile tongue: I. Treatment policies and result.

Six-hundred-two patients were treated for cancer of the mobile tongue between 1959 and 1972. Sixteen percent had T1, 48% T2, and 36% T3 lesions. Sixty-four percent had no palpable nodes (N0). The primary was treated in the majority of patients by radium implant alone or in association with external radiotherapy. Nodes were treated primarily by surgery. Absolute and determinate survivals at five years are 36% and 48%. Determinate survivals for T1, T2 and T3 tumors are 80%, 56%, and 25%. Fifty-nine percent of those with clinically negative neck nodes survived five years. Recurrence at the primary site alone or associated with neck failure is 14% for T1, 22% for T2 and 29% for T3. Seventy percent of recurrences occurred within one year. Although 13% of patients who had recurrences at the primary site were alive at five years, 33% of those who had salvage surgery were rescued. Two percent of patients required surgery for radiation necrosis. In our opinion, radiotherapy remains the treatment of choice for the management of the primary lesion of cancer of the mobile tongue.