Abstract
Between January 1998 and March 2011, 16 patients with cervical lymph node metastasis from an unknown primary carcinoma were treated at Kyushu University Hospital. In terms of the N classification, there was one patient with N1, twelve with N2 and three with N3 disease. One patient already had distant metastasis before the treatment. The five-year survival rate was 60%, and the five-year disease-specific survival rate was 66%. The five-year survival rate of patients who received neck dissection surgery was 74%, while that of patients who did not receive the surgery was 33%. It is therefore considered that neck dissection surgery was effective. Based on a comparison between the treatment outcomes of several hospitals, the combination of surgery and chemoradiotherapy provided the best treatment results. We consider that a combination of neck dissection surgery and chemoradiotherapy is an effective treatment for cervical metastasis from an unknown primary carcinoma.
