Aim: Distant metastases as a hard symptom for malignancy of the tumor disease are found in 8–20% of oral cancer cases, but only 45% of them are confirmed by autopsy. But their prognostical influence is confirmed. The differentiation from second or third primaries is sometimes very complicated. The separation of the findings seems to be necessary because lip cancers, closely associated to skin tumors, are different to the mucosal cancers of the oral cavity. The prognostical influence is to examine.

Methods: The study reports on a retrospective explorative data analysis of 2481 cancer patients without any pretreatment from 14 different hospitals. 1229 were lip and 1252 were oral cavity cancers. Gender: 78.4% male, 21.6% female. Average age 64.0 a (min.13.8; max. 92.7a). As statistical methods SPSS9, factor and cluster analysis were used. For the life-table method 2400 cases were controllable. Significance level alpha 5%. The C-factor equal or greater 2 was 61.5%.

Results: Distant metastases were found in 0.8% of lip cancers with great prognostical influence and in 3.4% of oral cavity cancers; mainly localized in lungs and lymphatic system. Prognostical influence was confirmed. No gender specific results were found. Correlations to other findings were significant, like tumor localization (posterior third of tongue 8.7%, mandibular gingiva 7.1%), levels to occlusal plane, infiltration, tumor size and regional metastases. No significant correlations existed in this study to pathohistological diagnosis,tumor mobility,tumor localization in regions (pre-, postcanin, postmolar), growth form (exo-/endophytic) and bone destruction in X-rays.

Conclusion: The influence of distant metastases on prognosis of the tumor disease is emphasized, also is underlined the necessity to examine for them.