Stage III Major Salivary Gland Cancer
Note: Some citations in the text of this section are followed by a level of evidence. The PDQ editorial boards use a formal ranking system to help the reader judge the strength of evidence linked to the reported results of a therapeutic strategy. (Refer to the PDQ summary on Levels of Evidence for more information.)
Patients with low-grade stage III tumors of the salivary gland may be cured with surgery alone.[1,2,3] Radiation therapy as primary treatment is not often required but may be used for tumors for which resection involves a significant cosmetic or functional deficit, or as an adjuvant to surgery when positive margins are present.[4] Patients with low-grade tumors that have spread to lymph nodes may be cured with resection of the primary tumor and the involved lymph nodes, with or without radiation therapy. Neutron-beam therapy is effective in the treatment of patients with tumors that have spread to local lymph nodes.
Overall Level of Evidence for Cartilage
Although at least a dozen clinical studies of cartilage as a treatment for people with cancer have been conducted since the early 1970s, relatively few results have been reported in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. There are small amounts of reported data from phase III clinical trials. Additional clinical studies are now under way. At present, the use of cartilage (bovine [cow] or shark) as a treatment for people with cancer cannot be recommended outside the context of well-designed clinical...
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Patients with high-grade stage III salivary gland tumors that are confined to the gland in which they arise may be cured by surgery alone, though adjuvant postoperative radiation therapy may be used, especially if positive margins are present. Primary conventional x-ray radiation therapy may provide palliation for patients with unresectable tumors. Fast neutron beams, however, have been reported to improve disease-free survival and overall survival in this clinical situation.[5,6,7] Patients with tumors that have spread to regional lymph nodes should have a regional lymphadenectomy as part of the initial surgical procedure. Adjuvant radiation therapy for these tumors may reduce the local recurrence rate.
Low-grade Tumors
Standard treatment options:
- Surgery alone or with postoperative radiation therapy, if indicated, is appropriate.
- Chemotherapy should be considered in special circumstances, such as when radiation or surgery is refused or when tumors are recurrent or nonresponsive.
Treatment options under clinical evaluation:
- Data in which fast neutron-beam radiation therapy has been used have indicated superior results when compared with conventional radiation therapy using x-rays. The role of chemotherapy is under evaluation.[5,8,9,10]
High-grade Tumors
Standard treatment options:
- Patients with localized high-grade salivary gland tumors that are confined to the gland in which they arise may be cured by radical surgery alone.[11,12]
- Postoperative radiation therapy may improve local control and increase survival rates for patients with high-grade tumors, positive surgical margins, or perineural invasion.[13][Level of evidence: 3iiiDii][14,15,16]
- Fast neutron-beam radiation therapy or accelerated hyperfractionated photon-beam schedules have been reported to be more effective than conventional x-ray therapy in the treatment of patients with inoperable, unresectable, or recurrent malignant salivary gland tumors.[5,6,7,17]
Treatment options under clinical evaluation:
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