Association of Site and Recurrence in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma Patients Visiting Private Hospital in Chennai: A Retrospective Study

Background: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the most common malignant neoplasms of the oral cavity. Tongue, buccal mucosa, and gingivobuccal sulcus are the most commonly involved sites for the local recurrence of OSCC. The site of the tumor can be a critical parameter in relation to the recurrence of OSCC because of the varied action of tumor cells in different tumor macro and microenvironments. Hence, the current study aims to evaluate the correlation between the site and recurrence of OSCC among patients visiting private oral cancer hospitals. Materials and methods: Details of n=300 OSCC cases reported during 2019-2023, which included primary and recurrent OSCC, were collected. The sample population selected includes 261 primary and 39 recurrent oral squamous cell carcinoma cases. The demographic and clinicopathological data were retracted from the institution's common clinical database and transported to IBM-SPSS 23 software for statistical analysis. Chisquare was done to evaluate the association between site and recurrence status, and p<0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Males have a high predilection for OSCC, and the recurrent cases account for 13% of the sample population. The buccal mucosa was the most commonly affected site in primary and recurrent OSCC cases. However, the association between the site of the lesion and the status of recurrence was found to be statistically significant, with a p -value of 0.001. Conclusion: Even though buccal mucosa was the most common site for recurrent OSCC(p value -0.001), the present study carries a small sample size and a location -specific sampling. Hence, further studies must be conducted with a large sample size to test the significant correlation between the site and recurrence rate among patients diagnosed with OSCC.