Histological characteristics of early-stage oral tongue cancer in young versus older patients: A multicenter matched-pair analysis

Little is known about the histopathological characteristics that may differentiate early oral tongue cancer (OTSCC) between young and older patients. From a total of 311 cases diagnosed with clinically early-stage OTSCC at 6 institutions, only 42 patients were young patients were aged <= 45 years. For comparison, 42 patients >60 years old were matched for center of management, clinical stage and gender. We compared epithelial and stromal histopathologic parameters between the two groups. Most of the parameters were similar between the two groups, although the young patients appeared to have marginally higher intensity of tumor budding, histologic risk score, infiltrative pattern of invasion and tumor-stroma ratio. However, none of the factors showed significant difference when comparing the two groups. The histological parameters reflect mechanisms of invasive growth and tissue response to invasive growth, but not the etiological difference in OTSCC between young and older patients. Further investigations are necessary to compare the genetic background of early OTSCC in the two groups.