Abstract: Objective : To analyze the prognostic factors about recurrence of oral tongue squamous cell carcinomas. Methods : A total of 210 cases of oral tongue cancer were retrospectively reviewed. The recurrence rates of dif-ferent methods were compared and the factors that influenced local, regional and distant control were identi-fied with Cox regression. Results : The 5-year overall survival rate of these 210 patients was 61.1%. The over-all recurrence rate was 31.9%. The local recurrence rate was 23.8% and the regional recurrence rate was16.7%. The rate of distant metastasis was 5.7%. The local recurrence rate was 5.1% in the group treated withsurgery alone, 42.7 in the group treated with radiotherapy alone, and 17.3% in the group treated with preoper-ative radiotherapy and surgery, and 8.5% in the group treated with postoperative radiotherapy and surgery. InCox regression, treatment modalities and T stages had significant influence on local control. Good regionalcontrol could be achieved without local recurrence. Regional recurrence and poor pathological differentiationwould lead to high distant metastasis rate. At 2 years after treatment, the local recurrence rate was 92% andthe regional recurrence rate was 91.4%. Conclusion : To achieve good local and regional control, surgeryalone for oral tongue cancers of early stage and combined treatment modalities for advanced diseases wererecommended, respectively. A follow-up of at least 2 years after treatment is necessary. Salvage treatment forsome patients with recurrence can achieve good local and regional control.