Análise histopatológica convencional versus cortes seriados em esvaziamentos cervicais de pacientes com Carcinoma Espinocelular (CEC) de cavidade oral e orofaringe cN0

Abstract

Objective. Asses the change in neck staging in patients with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of oral cavity and oropharynx after new methodology for histopathological analysis of lymph nodes of surgical specimens from neck dissections, with step serial sections of all harvested lymph nodes, in clinically neck negative patients (cN0). It was also studied the impact of this changes on survival. Materials and methods. Retrospective study with 21 patients previously classified as cN0 undergoing surgery for excision of the primary tumor and elective neck dissection. Initially was held to revise the original pathology slides and, subsequently, step-serial sectioning with 5 µm thick and re-examination of the slides. In order to assess the impact of change in disease-free survival was held Kaplan-Meier analysis (IC 95%). Results. After conventional evaluation, 14 patients were found to be without lymphatic metastases (pN0) and seven (33%) were affected (pN+). The analysis with step serial section has detected three other patients with lymphatic metastases, previously classified as pN0, and one patient previously as N1 increased to N2b with 10 pN(+) cases (48%). There was an increase of 43% in patients with lymph node metastases and 19% of increase in neck staging after the new histopathological standardization, but without impact on survival (p = 0.554). Conclusion. Analysis of lymph nodes in surgical specimens of neck dissections with step-serial sectioning allowed an increase of 43% of necks with occult metastases and increase of neck staging in 19% when compared to conventional technique.