Nodal vascularity as an indicator of cervicofacial metastasis in oral cancer: A Doppler sonographic study

BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to assess nodal vascularity by Doppler sonography and to find out the correlation between clinical and various Doppler sonographic features for the detection of the metastatic nodes in oral cancer patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A total number of 55 patients of histopathologically proven oral cancer presenting with enlarged superficial cervicofacial lymph nodes were included in the study. Patients were subjected to clinical examination according to a specially designed proforma and the TNM staging was done. If more than one enlarged nodes were present, then the node with the largest diameter was chosen for further Doppler ultrasonographic examination followed by fine needle aspiration cytology test of the same node. RESULTS: Correlations of patterns of color Doppler flow signals with cytological diagnosis showed that central type of vascular pattern was statistically significant parameter for benign lymph nodes and peripheral type of vascularity was highly significant parameter for malignant lymphadenopathy. It was found that the cut-off value of resistive index 0.6 was statistically significant in the assessment of metastatic node (P < 0.01) with a sensitivity of 45.5% and specificity of 93.9%. On comparison of the clinical features (TNM staging) with Doppler sonographic features, it was found that the characteristic features suggestive of malignant lymph nodes on Doppler sonography such as peripheral blood flow and high resistive index were more consistently and frequently associated with the higher sub-stages of T3 and T4 and N2b and N2c of TNM staging system. CONCLUSION: Nodal vascularity may be used to differentiate benign from malignant lymphadenopathy. Proper judicious use of non-invasive color Doppler ultrasonographic examination provides an opportunity to eliminate the need for biopsy in reactive nodes and provide treatment in a more precise manner.