In early well-lateralized SCCA of the tongue (pT1-2N0), should the contralateral neck be radiated?

We did a multi institutional analysis of this that was presented at Astro 2018, the manuscript will be out soon. It looked at patients with lateralized oral tongue cancer and showed a 6% contralateral failure rate even in node positive patients. We are comfortable omitting the contralateral neck if ...

If the patient is going to undergo radiation, we will be radiating both sides of the neck. Typically at our center, we do not dissect the contralateral neck and only dissect the ipsilateral neck.

I would not irradiate unless there were indications for the primary site, such as perineural invasion. I would not irradiate solely to electively treat the neck. Assuming the tumor is well lateralized and the stage is pT1-T2N0, the contralateral neck should be at low risk and does not need to be tre...

The main issue when deciding to treat the contralateral neck in oral cavity ca is the need to include level Ib, thus eliminating the function of both submandibular glands (the ipsilateral is usually resected). This will worsen xerostomia even if the parotid glands are spared, taking into account the...