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Background: Involvement of cervical lymph nodes is the single most important prognostic factor in oral carcinoma. This study was aimed to evaluate the correlation between tumour stage and lymph node metastasis.Methods: A descriptive study was planned in oral cancer patients who fall within the inclusion criteria. This was compared with the postoperative histopathologic status of cervical nodes. Correlation analysis was done between tumor stage and lymph node metastasis.Results: Total 106 patients were included in the study. The male female ratio was 1.4:1. Majority of the patients 37(34.9%) were in the sixth decade of life. Carcinoma of the tongue was present in 17 cases while only 4 had carcinoma of lower alveolus. Most of the patients with oral cancer presented at an early stage (T1-T2). Stage IV was the commonest with 51 (48.1%) patients. Level I was the most commonly involved lymph node station (78.1%) in squamous cell carcinoma of oral cavity. A weak significant positive correlation between tumor stage and lymph node metastases (r =0.298) was found (p = 0.002). There was a moderate significant (p = 0.0001) positive correlation (r = 0.435) between pathological tumour stage and level of lymph node involvement. But the positive correlation was not statistically significant in carcinoma of the lower alveolus (r = 0.387, p=0.112).Conclusions: Significant positive correlation between pathological tumor stage and level of lymph node involvement in oral cancer and carcinoma tongue. But, in carcinoma lower alveolus the positive correlation was not significant.

Background: The preoperative ultrasound (USG) guided fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) of axillary metastasis may avoid unnecessary axillary dissections and time consuming and costly sentinel lymph node biopsy. This study was aimed to evaluate the accuracy of USG guided FNAC in preoperative assessment of clinically node negative breast cancer patients.Methods: An observational study was done in patients who fall within the inclusion criteria. USG guided FNAC of suspicious nodes was done. All the selected patients were taken up for modified radical mastectomy. The resected specimens were sent for detailed histopathological (HPR) evaluation, which was taken as the gold standard for the comparison with the pre-operative FNAC report.Results: Among a total of 33 patients with early breast cancer subjected to USG guided FNAC and compared with the HPR results. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of FNAC were 44.44%, 100%, 100% and 28.57% respectively.Conclusions: The sensitivity of USG guided FNAC of suspicious axillary lymph nodes was low, whereas the specificity and positive predictive values were high. Moreover, the negative predictive value is very less. Hence, the results suggested that USG guided FNAC has not proved to be sufficiently accurate for routine preoperative assessment in patients with early breast cancer.