The importance of clinical staging of minor salivary gland carcinoma.

We reviewed a 45-year experience with 459 patients who had previously untreated minor salivary gland neoplasms, 378 (82%) of which were malignant. Data were adequate for retrospective clinical staging in 353 of the 378 patients with malignant tumors using criteria identical to those for squamous carcinoma in the same sites. Five-, 10-, and 15-year survival rates for the patients with malignant tumors treated after 1966 were 75%, 62%, and 56%, respectively, a significant improvement compared with results reported previously. Multivariate analysis confirms that survival was significantly influenced by the clinical stage and the histologic grade, but the applicability of grading was limited to patients with mucoepidermoid carcinoma or adenocarcinoma. Ten-year overall survival was 83%, 53%, 35%, and 24% for patients with stage I through stage IV, respectively. Results in these patients are similar to those we have recently reported in patients with major salivary gland carcinomas, but we are unable to demonstrate that postoperative radiotherapy improved survival.