A Clinical Analysis of Patients with Recurrence or Metastasis Malignant Parotid Tumors.

The clinical courses of 30 patients with malignant salivary gland tumors were studied. Histological examination showed 18 high grade and 12 low grade malignant tumors.Twenty patients (8 with high-grade and 12 with low-grade malignant tumors), had a good outcome after surgical treatment only. None had metastasis, and only one had any infiltration of the surrounding tissues. The other 10 patients died of local tumor recurrence or distant metastasis despite aggressive surgery, including sacrifice of the facial nerve or removal of adjacent skin plus postoperative radiotherapy or chemotherapy. The patients with a poor outcome had high grade malignant tumors with infiltration of surrounding tissues or cervical lymph node metastasis. These results show that pathological characteristics and clinical stage are the very important factors in the clinical outcome after surgery for malignant tumors of the parotid gland.