Epidemiologic and clinicopathologic characteristics of tongue cancer in Iranian patients.

Oral cancer is considered a great threat to public health. Tongue cancer accounts for nearly 30% of all oral cancers and usually seen in 50 to 60 year old men. Oropharyngeal cancers account for 3% of all cancers in Iran; as reported in 2003. The present study was designed to assess the epidemiologic and clinicopathologic characteristics of tongue cancer patients in two Tehran's referral university hospital between the years 2003 and 2008. In a retrospective study 87 files of patients, diagnosed with tongue cancer who were referred to Imam Khomeini and Loghman Hospitals and Iranian Cancer Institute in Tehran-Iran from 2003 to 2008 were reviewed. Participants were selected from all the patients who had a record of their specimens in the pathology ward registry and their tongue cancer diagnosis was confirmed by a expert pathologist. Patients characteristics (age, gender and presence of risk factors) and chief complain at the time of diagnosis and their tumor related data (type of cancer, staging, grading, morphology and location of tumor) were recorded. Tongue cancer was most frequently seen in the eighth decade of life among both men and women, but had the lowest frequency among patients with less than 40 years of age. Squamous cell carcinoma had the highest prevalence in our patients. Tongue cancer was the most common cancer of oral cavity among Iranian patients and similar epidemiologic and clnicopathological characteristics of the disease were found in our patients. Assessing variables such as socioeconomic levels and religious believe require further studies with large sample sizes.