Quality measures in cervical lymphadenectomy for cutaneous malignancy by head and neck trained general surgeons

Therapeutic lymphadenectomy remains the gold standard for surgical management of clinically evident regional cervical disease for cutaneous malignancy. However, international consensus on adequate lymphadenectomy is lacking. Attempts have been made to establish quality measures; suggested benchmarks for minimum and average nodal yield, as well as recurrence and complication rates have been quoted. We aim to compare our key performance indicators to those benchmarks published in the literature.

This is a retrospective observational study conducted with prospectively maintained data, over an 11-year period (2007-2018).

Of 91 cervical lymphadenectomies included, mean nodal yield for ≤3 and ≥4 dissection levels were 19.7 and 38.7 respectively. We observed a combined locoregional recurrence rate of 25%. Subgroup analysis for melanoma (60) and cSCC (28) revealing regional nodal recurrence of 15% and 11%, respectively. We observed a 38.5% complication rate; however, less than 5.5% was considered grade IIIb/IIIb(d) [Clavein-Dindo]. Median follow-up of 19.3 months, five-year survivial rate of 38% and 32% for melanoma and cSCC, respectively.

Our data indicates that we are meeting quality measures, set by higher volume centres. We believe that any surgeon with subspecialty training in head and neck surgery can meet quality measures with regards to cervical lymphadenopathy for cutaneous malignancy.