The purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy of preoperative ultrasonography (US) of cervical lymph node (LN)metastasis in oral squamous cell carcinoma patients. Criteria to detect LN metastasis are proposed and discussed. In this retrospective study 58 LNs from 29 patients were included. They were evaluated ultrasonographically before surgery and studied histologically after surgery for cervical lymph node metastasis.US findings were compared with histological results in order to ascertain the accuracy of the ultrasonographic examination of cervical lymph nodes. The results of the study showed that US findings of an absent hilum and the shorter diameter of a LN exceeding 10mm have high predictive values for LN metastasis.The criteria of an absent hilum or smaller diameter of a LN over 10mm regardless of the presence of the hilum provided a sensitivity of 92%, a specificity of 82%, and an accuracy of 86%. The results of this study, verified the efficacy of US assessment for LN metastasis.The presence of LN metastasis could be diagnosed with good accuracy by US examination.
口腔扁平上皮癌術前頸部リンパ節転移診断のための診断基準の検討
