Clinical Features and Prognostic Factors of Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma of Head and Neck

Objective  To retrospectively analyze the clinical and pathological data of 48 patients with adenoid cystic carcinoma of the head and neck and screen out related factors that affect the patient's prognosis.

Methods  The overall survival rate of patients is used as the main indicator for observing prognosis. We selected 11 clinical and pathological factors as observation indicators that may have an impact on the survival and prognosis of patients. The relation between observation factors and the overall survival rate of patients was analyzed by Cox multivariate regression.

Results  The median follow-up time was 33.5(1-98) months. The 1-, 2- and 5-years overall survival rates were 95%, 91% and 87%. Local recurrence occurred in 14(29.2%) patients. Distant metastasis occurred in 22(45.8%) patients. Cox regression analysis showed that recurrence, distant metastasis and primary site were correlated with the overall survival rate of patients with head and neck adenoid cystic carcinoma (P < 0.05).

Conclusion  Adenoid cystic carcinoma is a relatively rare tumor of the head and neck with a low degree of malignancy. However, recurrence, distant metastasis and primary site have relatively great impact on the prognosis of patients.