Clinical and pathological prognostic factors are valuable tools for proper planning the strategy of adjuvant treatment and determining prognosis of oral cancer patients. The standard treatment of patients with locally advanced oral cavity cancers is surgical resection which is followed by adjuvant radiotherapy or simultaneous chemoradiation therapy [1]. Considerable progress has been made in the diagnosis and treatment patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Nonetheless, the overall 5-year survival rate has remained stagnant at about 45-50% in most countries over the past decades [2]. A further insight into the factors contributing to the progression of the disease can be advantageous for the properly reasoned judgment of the most appropriate postsurgical treatment modes in order to gain better patient survival [3-5]. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine the clinical and pathological prognostic factors affecting the prognosis of the disease in patients with resectable locally advanced oral squamous cell carcinoma. It is a retrospective analysis of outcomes of 234 patients with resectable locally advanced OSCC, which was performed in order to study the impact of clinical and pathological factors on disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS). The study included stage III-IVa-b OSCC patients, who underwent surgical treatment followed by radiotherapy or chemoradiation therapy. The patients who had received immunotherapy, chemotherapy or radiation therapy before the surgical treatment and those with distant metastases and tumor recurrence after previous treatment were not eligible for the study.
