Do you consider increased tumor thickness alone as an indication for postoperative radiation in oral cavity cancers?

Depth of invasion (DOI )has been shown to predict regional disease. As such, surgeons will use this information to decide if a neck dissection (ND) should be performed in the cN0 patient with oral tongue cancer.

With no other adverse features (i.e., no PNI, no LVSI, no poor differentiation, good marg...

Limiting my answer to the oral tongue, I do not use tumor thickness alone as a consideration for post-operative radiotherapy to the primary site. It is typically used as a surrogate for risk of lymphatic involvement and consideration of neck management (typically elective dissection). Many retrospec...

We debate this issue in tumor board all the time. I generally agree with Anshu’s answer — I would also add that there is data indicating elevated risk of regional failure in patients with >=4 mm tumor thickness managed with partial glossectomy and neck dissection without postoperative radiation (Gan...