Progressive functional improvement in hemiglossectomy defects reconstructed with radial forearm free flap at 6-months.

OBJECTIVE: The purposes of the study was to evaluate for the functional improvement of outcomes of patients undergoing surgical management for tongue cancer at varying periods after surgery. DESIGN: Case series with intervention. PARTICIPANTS: Thirty consecutive patients, from 2011 to 2015, with carcinoma of the tongue undergoing surgical resection and reconstruction with a radial forearm free flap. MAIN MEASURES: The Speech Intelligibility Test (SIT) is used for objective evaluation of speech function. The 7-point ordinal scale Functional Oral Intake Score (FOIS) was used to estimate the swallowing function. RESULTS: The patients included were 25 men and 5 women with a mean age of 50.4 years (range - 27-65). All tumors were squamous cell carcinomas and all patients underwent a hemiglossectomy. There were two complete flap failures, with a resultant flap success rate of 93.3%. The initial mean speech intelligibility scores at 1-month increased from 72.3 +/- 0.2 to 77.7 +/- 8.9 at 6-months after surgery (p = 0.05). Similarly, the mean score of swallowing function improved from 6.1 at 1-month to 6.8 at 6-months after surgery (p = 0.05). CONCLUSION: Reconstruction of hemiglossectomy defects with a radial forearm free flap offers functional benefits in speech and deglutition that demonstrate progressive improvement when 1- and 6-month post-surgical assessments are compared.