The prognostic relevance of lymph node ratio in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma treated with neoadjuvant therapy regimen and radical surgery

Abstract Background This study aims at investigating the prognostic significance of lymph node ratio (LNR) in a cohort of patients with oral squamous cell carcinomas (OSCC), treated with neoadjuvant radiochemotherapy followed by radical surgery. Methods The study included 171 treatment-naive patients with biopsy-proven primary OSCC, being reviewed retrospectively. All patients received a concomitant neoadjuvant radiochemotherapy (RCT) followed by radical surgery of the primary tumor and neck dissection based on the pretreatment staging results. The Kaplan–Meier survival analysis method was used to estimate the events of interest for overall survival (OS). Prognostic factors were identified through univariate and multivariate analysis. Results The 5-year overall survival rate for all patients was 48 %. In univariate analysis, patient's age and data compiled from the histopathological examination as margin status, extracapsular spread, ypT, ypN, ypUICC, number of positive lymph nodes and lymph node ratio (LNR) had a statistically significant impact on overall survival. Multivariate analysis revealed an independent significant impact of patient age, ypT, margin status and LNR on OS. ypN showed no statistical significant impact on OS. Conclusion Our results show that LNR is an important predictor for OS in patients with OSCC that were treated with neoadjuvant radiochemotherapy and radical surgery.