Skip to main content

Table 2 Referral status and possible causes for residual/persistent OSCCs

From: Salvage surgery for patients with residual/persistent diseases after improper or insufficient treatment of oral squamous cell carcinoma: can we rectify these mistakes?

Referral status and possible causes

Number (%)

Referral status

 Institutional referral

78 (75.7)

 Patient’s decision

25 (24.3)

Primary treatment center

 with low-volume oral cancer cases

74 (71.8)

 with high-volume oral cancer cases

29 (28.2)

Surgeon’s expertise

 Junior consultant

22 (21.4)

 Senior consultant

69 (67.0)

 Surgeons of nonrelated specialty

12 (11.7)

Age of patients

 <70

84 (81.6)

  ≥ 70

19 (18.4)

Comorbidities

 Yes

43 (41.7)

 No

60 (58.3)

Reports of intraoperative frozen section

 Yes

50 (48.5)

 No

53 (51.5)

Report completeness for primary margins

  ≤ 3 margins

47 (45.6)

 >3 margins

56 (54.4)

Clinical stage

 Early stage

23 (22.3)

 Late stage

80 (77.7)

Clinical diagnosis before primary surgery

 Correct

86 (83.5)

 Wrong

17 (16.5)

Biopsy before primary surgery

 Yes

79 (76.7)

 No

24 (23.3)

Time Lag between outpatient biopsy to primary admission*

  ≤ 2 month

63 (79.8)

  > 2 month

16 (20.2)

Patient’s initial reluctancy to radical resection/reconstruction

 Yes

41 (39.8)

 No

62 (60.2)

Treatment design mistakes&

 Flawed access for advanced cases

21 (20.4)

 Undertreatment regarding tumor depths

37 (35.9)

 Mismatch between imaging sizes and resection methods

32 (31.1)

 None of the above

41 (39.8)

Unstandardized operative implementations&

 Residual positive lymph node in operated cervical basin

24 (23.3)

 Non-enbloc resection for advanced lesions

11 (10.7)

 None of the above

78 (75.7)

  1. *: Only patients with biopsies before primary surgeries were included
  2. &: These different mistakes might overlap in the primary treatment of the same patients