From 1961 to 1980, 45 patients with malignant tumor of the palatine tonsil were treated at the Department of Otolaryngology, Mie University Hospital. Of these, 12 patients were cancer and 33 sarcoma.
Tonsillar cancer predominantly affected the male, whereas sarcoma was found in the male and female almost equally. The age distribution of tonsillar cancer was uniform, while there were two peaks in the fourth and seventh decades of life for tonsillar sarcoma. Eighty-three percent of cancer was squamous cell carcinoma, and all the sarcoma cases were malignant lymphoma of which 94% were reticulum cell sarcoma. Seventy-five percent of carcinoma were stage III or IV, while 94% of malignant lymphoma were stage I or II at the time of diagnosis. Sore throat was the most commonly encountered chief complaint for both carcinoma and malignant lymphoma. Three patients (25%) of those with carcinoma and four (12%) malignant lymphoma patients complained of a lump in the neck.
All the patients with tonsillar malignancy underwent radiation therapy, and chemotherapy was also used in nine patients (75%) with carcinoma and 19 (58%) with malignant lymphoma. Crude survival rates for tonsillar cancer was 64% for 1 year, 20% for 2 years, 11% for 3 years and 0% for 5 years, and for malignant lymphoma of the palatine tonsil it was 45% for 1 year, 40% for 2 years, 37% for 3 years and 22% for 5 years.
Although both carcinoma and malignant lymphoma had poor prognosis in this study, the preliminary results of combined radiation and chemotherapy for malignant lymphoma were encouraging. It was found that the total radiation dose of 5, 000-7, 000rads for carcinoma and 4, 000-6, 000rads for malignant lymphoma of the palatine tonsil was satisfactory in this study.