Salivary gland tumors in children and adolescents: a clinicopathologic and immunohistochemical study of fifty-three cases

Abstract

Objective: Salivary gland tumors in children and adolescents are rare. Most papers are case reports or short series of cases. The aim of this study was to analyze clinicopathological and immunohistochemical data from a large series of salivary gland tumors affecting youngsters from a single institution. Methods: From 1953 to 1997, 53 patients 18 years old or less with epithelial salivary gland tumors from the Hospital do Cancer A.C. Camargo were studied. Clinical and treatment data were obtained from the medical records and histological features were reviewed. Paraffin-embedded tissues were immunohistochemically analyzed for p53, PCNA, Ki-67, bcl-2, c-erbB-2, and CEA. Results: Twenty-seven tumors (51%) were benign and 26 (49%) malignant. Pleomorphic adenoma (PA) was the most common tumor type (49%), followed by mucoepidermoid carcinoma (MEC, 39.6%). The tumors were more common in female and 50.9% of the cases affected the parotid, followed by 26.4% of intraoral involvement. Immunohistochemical analysis did not show correlation with prognosis of the tumors. Twenty (74%) of the 27 patients with benign tumors were alive without evidence of disease after a mean of 16.5 years of follow up; 6 were lost of follow up and 1 died by causes not related to the disease. Nineteen (73%) of the 26 patients with malignant tumors did not show tumoral recurrence after a mean follow up of 14.3 years, and 3 (11.5%) patients died of the disease. Conclusions: In 53 cases of epithelial salivary gland tumors in youngsters, half were malignant, with favorable prognosis. On this series, immunohistochemical expression of p53, PCNA, Ki-67, c-erbB-2, bcl-2, and CEA, were not correlated with prognosis.