2017 Volume 151 Pages 50-52
In children and adolescents under 20 years of age, tumors of the parotid gland are relatively rare. A total of 14 patients with benign parotid tumors and 7 patients with malignant parotid tumors were treated at Osaka Medical College Hospital between 1999 and 2016. Pleomorphic adenoma was the most frequent benign neoplasm, while the most frequently encountered malignant neoplasm was mucoepidermoid carcinoma, followed by acinic cell carcinoma. Fine-needle aspiration cytology is useful and important for making a preoperative histological diagnosis, especially for benign tumors. Perioperative frozen section diagnosis is useful when there is doubt about whether the tumor is benign or malignant. Treatment is mainly surgery, with radiation therapy reserved for advanced-stage and/or histologically high-grade tumors. Parotid carcinoma in the pediatric age group is more often localized to the primary site and of low-grade histology than that in the adult population. Low- and intermediate-grade parotid carcinoma in the pediatric population may have favorable outcomes as compared to high-grade parotid carcinoma and adult parotid carcinoma.
