Introduction. Among all prognostic factors, “margin status” is the only factor under clinician’s control. Current guidelines describe histopathologic margin of >5？mm as “clear margin” and 1–5？mm as “close margin.” Ambiguous description of positive margin in the published data resulted in comparison of microscopically “involved margin” and “close margin” together with “clear margin” in many publications. Authors attempted to compare the outcome of close and clear margins of stage I and stage II squamous cell carcinoma of oral cavity to investigate the efficacy of description of margin status. Patients and Methods. Historical cohorts of patients treated between January 2010 and December 2011 at tertiary cancer hospital were investigated and filtered for stage I and stage II primary squamous cell carcinomas of oral cavity. Patients with margin status of tumor at margin or within 1mm from cut margin were excluded and analyzed in multivariate logistic regression model for locoregional recurrences and Cox regression for overall survival. Results. A total of 104 patients fulfilled the abovementioned criteria, of whom 36 were “clear margin” and 68 were “close margin” with median period of follow-up of 39 months. There was no significant difference in locoregional recurrence (P value: 0.0.810) and survival (P value: 0.0.851) among “close margin” and “clear margin” patients. 1. Introduction Globally lip and oral cancers together comprise of 9.7% of all the cancers [1]. Incidence of oral cancer is much higher in developing countries than developed countries. They comprise one-third of all cancers in southeast Asia [2]; the higher incidence is attributed to more popular chewable forms of tobacco in this region [3]. About 90% of oral cavity tumors are squamous cell carcinomas [4]. Surgery is primary treatment modality and best choice in oral cancers owing to anatomical considerations of complex bone and soft tissues in this area [5]; moreover morbidity associated with primary radiotherapy on quality of life and persistent xerostomia is considerable [6]. Prognostic risk factors of oral cancer include tumor staging and grading, marginal status, lymph vascular invasion, perineural spread, and perinodal spread of regional disease, of which marginal status is the only factor to a variable extent under clinician’s control [7]. Although surgeon always aims at a resection with clear margin, close margins are inevitable; complexity of oral anatomy explains the fact that positive margins are most frequent in oral cancer resection in comparison to the cancers of upper
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