Cancer of the tongue in patients less than forty

Introduction It is the opinion of many surgeons that the biologic potential of cancer that develops in young people is different compared with older patients. Prior reports on small series of patients addressing this issue have inadequate statistical power to resolve the question. Methods By use of the techniques of meta‐analysis, patients less than 40 years old who had undergone treatment of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the oral tongue were examined. Twenty‐eight patients who were encountered in the Department of Otolaryngology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and 94 patients were identified in the literature for a total of 122 patients