Impact of different surgical margin conditions on local recurrence of oral squamous cell carcinoma

Summary The purpose of this study was to analyze the impact of different surgical margin conditions on local recurrence of oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) in 148 consecutive patients who underwent planned radical resection of oral SCC. The patients were classified into four categories according to the status of the surgical margin: clear (no SCC within 5 mm, n  = 103), close (SCC within 5 mm, n  = 21), dysplasia (dysplastic epithelium at margin, n  = 13), and involved (SCC at margin, n  = 11). Cox’s proportional hazard model showed that the status of the surgical margin had a significant impact on local recurrence ( p