[Treatment of oral epidermoid carcinoma]

The in 1994 published work in an issue of the Revue Belge de Médecine Dentaire devoted to oral cancer, aimed to describe and analyse the treatment modalities of oral cancer. Surgical treatment, radiotherapy and chemotherapy were systematically detailed. The esthetic and functional problems inherent to radical oncological surgery in the face and mouth were analysed. In most cases, surgical and/or prosthetic rehabilitative or reconstructive methods could limit these functional and esthetic inconvenient to acceptable sequelae. Dental prosthetic rehabilitation could with some limits benefit from dental osseointegrated implants: the problematic of dental implants in irradiated jaws has been claimed. The genuine indications of external radiotherapy and of brachytherapy were described and the risks so as the primordial prevention of jaw osteoradionecrosis were pointed out. Chemotherapy, either as palliative, adjuvant or as inductive treatment, had clearly shown important therapeutic limits. This presented work compares the actual treatment modalities of the oral cancer, pointing the main therapeutic acquisitions in the last 5 years and gives some optional indications for the future.