PP025: Squamous cell carcinoma of the oral tongue in patients younger than 30 years

Purpose Oral tongue squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) in young patients is characterized by rising incidence. We focused in this study on the clinical, pathological and prognostic characteristics of oral tongue SCC in patients younger than 30y. Materials and methods A retrospective cohort study. Results One-hundred thirty-nine patients with oral tongue SCC were included, with a mean follow-up time of 29 months. Sixteen patients were 30 years old or younger at presentation (11.5%). Comparison between young patients (⩽30 years) and patients older than 60 years revealed no gender predilection, and similar rates of advanced T-stage, perineural and vascular invasion, histologic grade, and nodal extracapsular extension. However, N-positive disease was more common in younger patients (73% vs. 23%, p p p  = 0.029). Recurrent disease was more aggressive in patients younger than 30 years, with 100% fatality rate within 16 months, compared with 69% in patients 31–60 years and 48% in patients older than 60 years ( p  = 0.04). Conclusions Our study examined the clinicopathologic and prognostic characteristics of oral tongue SCC in patients younger than 30 years. We found that younger patients presented with an advanced disease due to higher rates of regional metastases, and that distant failure is more common. Differences in DFS and OS could not be established for all patients, though recurrences were more aggressive in young patients with fatality rate of 100%. Low prevalence of smoking among young patients can suggest that other factors are involved in the pathogenesis.