Risk Stratification of Early Staged Oral Tongue Cancers by HPV STatus and P16 IHC

Carcinoma of the oral tongue is one of the most common sub sites of oral cancer. Comparative worldwide studies have reported its incidence to be much higher in India (Moore et al., 2000; Mishra and Meherotra, 2014). In Chennai, India, oral tongue squamous cell carcinoma (OTSCC) represents 5% and 1.6% of incident cancers of all sites among males and females respectively as per the reports of population based cancer registry of the National Cancer Registry Program. The Age Adjusted Incidence Rate (AAR) of carcinoma tongue has shown an increasing trend over the past 25 years, from 3.6 in 1982-1983 to 5.7 in 2004-05 according to National Cancer Research Program (NCRP 2005). The trends in epidemiology of oral cancer in Asia in the past decade between 2000-2012 has shown that tongue is the most frequently affected site (Sreevidya Krishna Rao et al., 2013). The trends of