Optimization of Different Reconstructive Approaches for Reconstruction of Intraoral Defects after Tumor Extirpation

Oral cancer is one of the most common and lethal malignancies in the head and neck. Surgery remains the mainstay treatment in resectable oral cancer. Curative resection with negative margins remains the corner-stone in achieving the proper oncologic outcome. The larger the size of the tumor, the wider the resection and the larger the defect which usually results in the sacrifice of important aesthetic and functional subunits in the oral cavity. Reconstruction of such intra-oral defects is technically challenging. Despite the great advances achieved in reconstructive surgery and the introduction of free tissue transfer which became the state of the art reconstructive method in head and neck cancer patients, many oral cancer patients and many institutions are not candidate for this complex, sophisticated, and costy procedure. So that selection of the appropriate reconstructive approach in oral cancer patients is a great dilemma that should be individualized and couldn t be dogmatic for all cases; and it is affected by several patient, tumor and health care factors, moreover it differs according to the oral cavity subunit.In this study, we underwent surgical excision and immediate reconstruction in ninety eight patient with oral tumors and then underwent a critical appraisal and analysis of the used reconstructive methods in terms of safety, reliability of reconstruction, morbidity, mortality, oncologic and functional outcome in order to create a stylistic approach and an efficient algorithm for the reconstruction of different defects in the variable oral cavity subsites.