One of the important predictive factors in carcinomas of the oral cavity is tumor thickness and it can help in decision making with regard to management of primary tumor and neck.
Aim: To evaluate the significance of tumor thickness and margin involvement in malignancies of oral cavity affecting different sub sites.
Methods: A descriptive study was conducted on 60 patients with a clinical diagnosis of carcinoma of the oral cavity attending the Otorhinolaryngology out-patient department in our institution between 2012 and 2014. The collected data was then analyzed by frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, chi-square test and ROC analysis.
Results: Out of the 60 patients included in this study, 32% were female and 68% were male with a mean age of 50.72 years. Out of the 60 patients, 6 patients had positive margin involvement. Using Chi-Square tests, it was found that there is significantly higher tumor depth when margin is involved (P=0.021).
Conclusion: This study was done to correlate clinical and pathological data to surgical margins in cancers of the oral cavity and it was found that tumors of greater thickness were more correlated to unsatisfactory resection margins.
