The usefulness of follow-up sonography in the detection of subsequent cervical lymph node metastasis in patients with stage I/II tongue carcinoma

In order to assess the usefulness of repeated sonography in detecting cervical lymph node metastases at the earliest stage during a follow-up period in patients with stage I/II carcinoma 20 consecutive patients with stage I/II squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue were studied. Each patient was examined repeatedly with sonography during the follow-up period. Nine metastatic nodes in 9 of the 20 patients (45%) met our criteria, and were detected by repeated sonography. Histopathological examination revealed that 14 nodes had metastatic foci. Although the sensitivity, per node, of sonography was originally only 64%, follow-up sonography detected all of the subclinical subsequent lymph node metastases among the patients in this study. In conclusion, repeated sonography was useful in the detection of lymph node metastases during follow-up care of patients with stage I/II tongue carcinoma, provided that the follow-up examination was performed at maximum interval of one month, if possible, sonography should be performed in such cases at two-week intervals for at least one and a half year.