Abstract
Between 1982 and 1991, 326 patients were treated for head and neck malignant tumors at Osaka Prefectural Hospital. Among them, there were 5 patients (4 males, 1 female) with primary unknown neck carcinoma. The carcinomas were located in the submandibular area (2 cases) and upper jugular area (3 cases). There was one case in which the stage of the disease was N 1, two cases in which it was N2a and two in which the disease had reached the N3 stage. The histological diagnosis of all cases was squamous cell carcinoma of various levels of differentiation (1-low, 2-middle, 3-well).
After treatment of the carcinoma, the primary lesions appeared in two cases, one in the buccal mucosa, the other on the base of the tongue, and both patients died of the disease. The remaining patients who showed no primary lesion included one patient who died of distant metastasis and two patients who showed no evidence of disease and are still alive. Both of the cases in N3 stage at first examination later died of the disease.
