A comparative study of the JJC, AJC and UICC T classifications of squamous cell carcinoma of the maxillary sinus.

: Seventy-six cases with squamous cell carcinoma of the maxillary sinus were treated with radiotherapy and surgery with or without intra arterial infusion between 1969 to 1985 at the Tokyo Women's Medical College. T classification was made of all cases using the Japan Joint Committee (JJC, 1967), American Joint Committee (AJC, 1977) and Union Internationale Contre le Cancer (UICC, 1987) classifications. 1) By the JJC classification, there were 20 cases in T2, 44 in T3 and 12 in T4. By the AJC classification, there were 9 cases in T2, 58 in T3 and 9 in T4. The classification of 14 cases were changed from JJC T2 to AJC T3, because of extension to the medial nasal meatus. By the UICC classification, there were 27 T2 cases, 32 T3 and 17 T4. 2) Cervical lymph node metastasis was detected in 14 cases (18%) at initial diagnosis and most were found in T3 and T4 cases. 3) The cumulative 5-year survival rates were 67% for T2, 32% for T3 and 25% for T4 by the JJC classification and statistical differences (p less than 0.05) were seen in T2-T3 and T2-T4. In the AJC classification, these were 71% for T2, 37% for T3 and 22% for T4 and no statistical significance was found among them. By the UICC classification, the 5-year survival was 58% for T2, 26% for T3 and 38% for T4 and marked statistical significance (p less than 0.01) was seen in T2-T3 and T2-T4. 4) The cumulative 5-year survival rate in 14 patients with tumor extension to the medial nasal meatus was 55% and it is appropriate to define this stage as T2 in the new UICC classification. These data suggested that UICC classification (1987) is useful and correlated with prognostic analysis.