ABSTRACT
Background: To evaluate the speech and swallowingoutcomes after free radial forearm reconstruction forhemiglossectomy defects.Patients and Methods: The clinicopathologic data of 10tongue carcinoma cases hospitalized from November 2015 toDecember 2018 in American International Institute of MedicalSciences, Udaipur (Raj.). There were 7 male patients and 3female patients with age ranging from 40-65 years old. Thesepatients underwent simultaneous hemiglossectomy andintraoral defects reconstruction with Forearm Radial Free flap.Mandible was not resected in any of the patients. All subjectswere evaluated 3 months postoperatively.Results: There was vascular crisis in 1 case, and secondarytreatment was taken to rescue the flap. The donor sites wereclosed with grafted skin. In 3 cases, a partial grafted skin losswas observed and the donor sites healed after a long timeunder local wound care. 2 cases suffered from numbness infingers to some degree.Conclusion: When compared with primary closure of the postexcisional defect of the tongue, it is better to reconstruct thedefect with free radial forearm flap. The overall satisfaction ofthe patients in regards to function and cosmesis in tonguereconstruction was high when using free tissue transfer in theform of free radial forearm flap following wide localoncosurgical resection