Tongue pressure in patients with tongue cancer resection and reconstruction

Objective: Assessment of tongue function following tongue reconstruction is important to evaluate patient status. To assess tongue function in patients who had undergone tongue reconstruction, the surgical team used a simple, hand-held tongue pressure measurement device to measure tongue power. Methods: Tongue power of 30 patients (25 males, 5 females: average age: 53.6 +/- 15.0 years) was calculated using a hand-held tongue pressure measurement device, six months postoperation. The defects were classified into minimal glossectomy (MG) (n = 8), near-half partial glossectomy of the mobile tongue (PG) (n = 5), hemi-glossectomy (HG) (n = 4), more than half partial glossectomy of the mobile tongue (SG-MT) (n = 7), and subtotal glossectomy (SG) (n = 6). As seen in other tongue assessments, a simple articulatory test, food evaluation, and speech intelligibility assessment were also performed: resulting correlations were statistically calculated using tongue pressure values. Results: The tongue pressure values were 94.0 +/- 14.5% in MG, 48.5 +/- 13.2(a) % in PG, 40.4 +/- 18.7(a) % in HG, 19.3 +/- 7.7(a,b)% in SG-MT, and 15.3 +/- 5.6(a,b)% in SG (a: <0.05 vs. MG, b: <0.05 vs. PG). The Pearson r was 0.77, 0.67, and 0.74 when correlated with simple articulatory test, food evaluation, and speech intelligibility assessment, respectively. Conclusion: Tongue pressure measurement in patients with tongue cancer resection and reconstruction facilitated determination of patients' tongue function status. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.