Axillary lymph node metastasis in second oropharyngeal cancer.

The current management of head and neck cancers is based on the histological pattern of infiltration, the size of the primary tumor and the pattern of metastasizing lymph nodes and potential distant spreading. Current tests allow us to diagnose most distant metastases even outside the usual area of lymphatic drainage. Involvement of axillary lymph node, probably through retrograde lymphatic spreading is not so rare in recurrences of oropharyngeal cancer (T3 - T4, N2, …) as we have observed in the literature. In this review, we raise some degree of similarity between such oncological progression and factors related to this aberrant spreading.