Oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) has a high propensity of lymph node involvement, with neck dissections revealing occult nodal disease in roughly a third of cT1-2N0 cases. Sentinel node sampling is often performed at time of primary tumor resection to avoid complete neck dissections on all patients, but this leaves a substantial minority requiring a second procedure when final pathology demonstrates sentinel node involvement. A pooled analysis of 17 studies (n=878) evaluating frozen section analysis of sentinel node sampling performed during resection of cT1-2N0 oral cavity SCC demonstrates 30% of final pathology reported sentinel node involvement, of which two thirds were detected on intraoperative frozen section analysis. This means frozen section analysis of sentinel nodes allows most patients with occult nodal disease to undergo completion neck dissection in the same procedure. | Abukhder, JAMA Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 2024
