Abstract
The clinical features of 123 patients (66 men, 57 women; mean age, 61 years) with malignant major salivary gland tumors treated between 1986 to 2004 were retrospectively investigated. In this report we evaluated the results of the treatment and clinical as well as histopathologic features. According to the TNM Classification of 1997, 10 patients were classified as T1, 21 as T2, 23 as T3, and 69 as T4. Seventy-eight cases were staged as N0, 15 as N1, 28 as N2 and 2 as N3. Histopathologically, 16 tumor types were observed; mucoepidermoid carcinoma was the most common. As a treatment, surgery was done in all patients.
The five-year and ten-year cause-specific survival rates determined using the Kaplan-Meier method were 61% and 50%. The factors influencing a poor outcome were T4 classification (p=0.0131), N+ stage (p<0.0001) and stage IV (p=0.0046). As for the major histopathologic types, the five-year suvival rates were 61% for mucoepidermoid carcinoma, 62% for adenoid cystic carcinoma, 52% for adenocarcinoma, 83% for malignant mixed tumor and 100% for acinic cell carcinoma.
Thirty-two (26%) out of the 123 cases developed local recurrence. Twelve (13%) out of the 90 cases developed neck recurrence after neck dissection. Two (6%) out of the 33 cases without neck dissection developed nodal metastasis. Twenty-five (20%) out of the 123 cases developed distant metastasis. There was a statistically significant difference between extra-capsular spread of the metastatic lymph node and distant metastasis (p<0.05).
