Lymph Node Central Necrosis on the Computed Tomography as the Predictor of the Extra Capsular Spread in Metastatic Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between the presence of the cervical lymph node with central necrosis as on the preoperative imaging and postoperative histopathological identification of the lymph node extra capsular spread. This study is a prospective study conducted at J.L.N. Hospital and Research Centre, Bhilai (C.G), from August 2011 to January 2014. Thirty patients with metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma were enrolled. All candidates were subjected to a detailed history taking and clinical examination. Their preoperative computed tomography (CT) scans were assessed with attention to the presence and absence of lymph node, lymph node size, shape, level, presence or absence of the lymph node central necrosis and other signs of the ECS such as thick walled enhancing nodal margin, loss of margin definition, alteration of adjacent fat planes. These patients then underwent surgery which included resection of the primary with the neck dissection. The preoperative records of the lymph node size and location were observed radio-graphically and analyzed with the resected lymph node histopathologically. These data was used for finding out correlation. Of the total 30 patients studied, 24 patients were male and 6 patients female with ratio of 4:1. The most common group of the patients were of malignancy of gingivobuccal sulcus. Out of the 30 patients 19 patients had the radiographic evidence of the central necrosis, out of which 11 had the extra capsular spread on the histological analysis. In no patients did we found histopathology extra capsular spread without central necrosis. Thus the central necrosis on the CT has the high sensitivity for detection of the extra capsular spread. Out of the 19 lymph node without extra capsular spread, 11 lymph nodes had no central necrosis on the preoperative CT, remaining 8 lymph node were having central necrosis on CT whereas post op histopathology of these 8 lymph nodes showed metastatic deposit, indicating the low specificity of the central necrosis in detection of the ECS. Lymph node central necrosis on pre-operative CT is sensitive indicator with a high negative predictive value for lymph node extra capsular spread. Future studies focusing on identifying molecular mediator involved in ECS to determine targets for adjuvant therapies in this subset of patients are recommended.