To determine the epidemiological profile and the pattern of cervical lymph node metastasis in patients with Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC).

Introduction: The Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC) is one of the most commonly encountered carcinomas in the head and neck region in this era, with increase in tobacco abuse. The incidence of OSCC is 1.9% to 3.5% of malignant tumour in the whole body and it accounts for 4.7% to 20.3% of head and neck malignancies, ranking second in head and neck cancers. Material and Methods Study Area: Patients diagnosed with Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma who underwent surgery in the Department of ENT at Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Memorial Hospital, Byculla, Mumbai. Observations & Result: On comparison of various subsites of oral cavity involved in our study we observed buccal mucosa (50%) was the most involved subsite, followed by tongue (23%) followed by lower alveolus (12%). clinically we observed that cT2 (38%) and cT3 (38%) were the most common stage of presentation and we observed that cNO (65%) was the most common stage of presentation. Out of 53 patients, 37 (70%) patients showed moderately differentiated tumour histology followed by poorly differentiated (19%) and well differentiated (11%). 24.5% patients had depth of invasion less than or equal to 5mm, 36.5% patients had 5 to 10mm, 40.4% patients had depth of invasion more 10mm. We observed only type 3 and type 4 Pattern of invasion in our study out of which 71.60% was type 3 and 28.30% was type 4. Conclusion: We found that buccal mucosa (50%) was the most commonly involved subsite. Among the study population, most of the patients (65%) had clinically no occult neck metastasis. We observed that there is no significant association between well differentiated and moderately differentiated tumour histology and occult neck metastasis. We observed that with increasing depth of invasion there was an increased risk of occult metastasis. Our study showed only type 3 and type 4 pattern of invasion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]