[Choice of the treatment for lip carcinoma--an analysis on 74 cases]

This paper reports the results of the treatment of 74 patients with lip carcinoma from 1958-1974. All patients were proved by pathology and received their first course of treatment in our hospital. 44 of these patients were treated by radiation and 30, by surgery. The over-all five-year survival rate is 59% (44/74). Satisfactory results were obtained in the early lesions (stages I, II) either by surgery or radiation and the five-year survival rates are 66% (surgery 6/9, radiation 4/6). For stages III and IV, the result of operation is better than radiation's. The five-year survival rate in the former is 71% (15/21) and in the latter is 50% (19/38). In the stage IV lesions (T4), surgery was contraindicated but radiation was still able to cure 25% (1/4) of the patients. The optimal dose for the primary lesion was 6000-8000 rad/6-8 wk. For patients without any metastasis in the neck lymph nodes or with suspicious ones (N0, N1a, N2a), 12% (4/33) developed cervical metastasis if the upper neck area was left untreated. Yet none of them developed metastasis if the neck was treated prophylactically either by radiation (3000-4000 rad/3-4 wk) or by surgery. For patients with positive neck lymph nodes (N1b, N2b, N3), surgery was better than radiation (4000-6000 rad/4-6 wk).