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Salivary gland mucoepidermoid carcinoma is a clinically, morphologically and genetically heterogeneous entity: a clinicopathological study of 40 cases with emphasis on grading, histological variants and presence of the t(11;19) translocation
Author(s) -
Schwarz Stephan,
Stiegler Clemens,
Müller Maximilian,
Ettl Tobias,
Brockhoff Gero,
Zenk Johannes,
Agaimy Abbas
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
histopathology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.626
H-Index - 124
eISSN - 1365-2559
pISSN - 0309-0167
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2559.2011.03777.x
Subject(s) - mucoepidermoid carcinoma , grading (engineering) , pathology , carcinoma , salivary gland , histology , medicine , biology , gastroenterology , ecology
Schwarz S, Stiegler C, Müller M, Ettl T, Brockhoff G, Zenk J & Agaimy A
(2011) Histopathology 58 , 557–570
Salivary gland mucoepidermoid carcinoma is a clinically, morphologically and genetically heterogeneous entity: a clinicopathological study of 40 cases with emphasis on grading, histological variants and presence of the t(11;19) translocation Aims: To correlate World Health Organization (WHO) grade, patient’s outcome and presence of t(11;19) to histological tumour variants in 40 well‐characterized mucoepidermoid carcinomas (MECs). Methods and results: MECs were classified as ‘classical’ based on the presence of equal proportions of the three cell types or the dominance (≥50%) of mucous cells together with at least one other cell type, and as ‘variant’ if composed of ≥80% of a single non‐mucous cell type. Classical MECs were more common ( n = 23). Variant MECs had predominant squamoid ( n = 9), eosinophilic ( n = 5) or clear cell ( n = 3) morphology. Twenty‐seven tumours were WHO grade 1, three grade 2 and ten grade 3. The t(11;19) was detected in 82%, 35% and 0% of classical MEC, variant MEC and non‐MEC, respectively. Classical MECs were associated significantly with age ≤60 years ( P < 0.001), grade 1 ( P < 0.001) and t(11;19) ( P = 0.003). Short overall survival was associated significantly with age >60 years ( P = 0.001) and Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) stage >I ( P = 0.031), residual tumour ( P < 0.001), tumour grade >1 ( P = 0.001) and squamoid variant ( P = 0.002) in Kaplan–Meier analysis. Conclusions: The results underscore the great histological diversity of MEC, the reproducibility of the WHO grading criteria and the value of histological subtypes as an additional prognostic factor.