Salivary Gland Mucoepidermoid Carcinoma is a Clinically, Morphologically and Genetically Heterogeneous Entity. A Clinicopathologic Study of 40 Cases with Emphasis on Grading, Histological Variants and Presence of the t(11;19) Translocation.

Stephan Schwarz (1) , Clemens Stiegler (2) , Maximilian Mueller (3) , Tobias Ettl (4) , Gero Brockhoff (5) , Johannes Zenk (6) , Abbas Agaimy (3)

1 Department of Pathology
2 Department of Pathology
3 Department of Pathology
4 Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
5 Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics
6 Department of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology

Aims: To correlate World Health Organization (WHO) grade, patient's outcome and presence of t(11;19) to histological tumor variants in 40 well characterized mucoepidermoid carcinomas (MECs) out of a series of 290 salivary gland carcinomas. 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 beside at least one other cell type, and as variant if composed of ≥80% single 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. 27 tumors were WHO grade 1, 3 grade 2 and 10 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 significantly associated with age ≤60 years (p<0.001), grade 1 (p<0.001), and t(11;19) (p=0.003). Short overall survival was significantly associated with age >60 years (p=0.001) and UICC stage >I (p=0.031), residual tumor (p<0.001), tumor 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 and the value of histological subtypes as an additional prognostic factor.

Mots clés: Medicine

Stephan Schwarz, Clemens Stiegler, Maximilian Mueller, Tobias Ettl, Gero Brockhoff, et al.. Salivary Gland Mucoepidermoid Carcinoma is a Clinically, Morphologically and Genetically Heterogeneous Entity. A Clinicopathologic Study of 40 Cases with Emphasis on Grading, Histological Variants and Presence of the t(11;19) Translocation.. Histopathology, 2011, 58 (4), pp.557. ⟨10.1111/j.1365-2559.2011.03777.x⟩. ⟨hal-00618804⟩