| Purpose: For decades there has been no consensus on whether in-continuity neck dissection or discontinuous neck dissection is better suited to managing patients with squamous cell carcinoma(SCC)of the tongue and floor of mouth.This study aims to carry out a meta-analysis to compare discontinuous neck dissection with in-continuity neck dissection in SCC of the tongue and floor of mouth.Methods: Pub Med,Web of Science,CNKI,and Wanfang databases were searched for articles until March 1,2017 which compared discontinuous neck dissection with in-continuity neck dissection in SCC of the tongue and floor of mouth.The predictor variable was whether discontinuous neck dissection or in-continuity neck dissection was performed in each group.The primary outcome variable was the incidence of loco-regional recurrence.Two authors individually extracted the data and performed study quality assessment.The meta-analysis was performed with STATA 13.0.Results: Eight studies with 796 patients were included in our meta-analysis.The results showed that in-continuity neck dissection have a statistically significant lower incidence of loco-regional recurrence than the discontinuous neck dissection(random effects model: RR,0.459;95%CI,0.240-0.877;P=0.019).Because of the existence of significant heterogeneity(I2=74.5%;P=0.000),a separate analysis was performed and showed that the in-continuity neck dissection also have a statistically significant lower rate of loco-regional recurrence than the discontinuous neck dissection in patients with T2 and T3 SCC of the tongue and floor of mouth(fixed effects model: RR,0.281;95%CI,0.183-0.433;P=0.000).Conclusion: The findings of this meta-analysis suggested that the in-continuity neck dissection could significantly reduce the rate of loco-regional recurrence than the discontinuous neck dissection in patients with SCC of the tongue and floor of mouth. |
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