Usefulness of vital staining with iodine solution in excisional biopsy of tongue cancer

Around oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), the expanding epithelial dysplasia are often observed. They are considered to cause local recurrence or second primary cancer. Especially, these epithelial dysplasia are found frequently in superficial lesion which are the objects in excisional biopsy. The aim of this study is to evaluate the usefulness of decision for surgical margin by iodine staining. 49 primary cases with tongue SCC were treated by excisional biopsy. They were divided into 2 groups, A group (no iodine staining group) with 25 cases and B group (iodine staining group) with 24 cases. And they were compared. We obtained the following results: In regard to local recurrence, there are 4 cases (16%) at A group, 1 case (4.2%) at B group. Epithelial dysplasia positive in margin status by rapid frozen section diagnosis were observed 8 cases (32%) in A group, 2 cases (8.2% ) in B group. Therefore, in deciding the surgical margin of excisional biopsy, the staining with iodine solution is useful.