Clinicopathologic factors associated with recurrence in low- and high-grade parotid cancers

Background The purpose of this study was to determine clinicopathological correlates of outcome among patients with parotid gland cancer. Methods The medical records of 126 patients treated by surgery for localized parotid cancer were retrospectively reviewed to identify the clinicopathologic correlates of recurrence-free survival (RFS) according to histologic grade. Results Multivariate analysis revealed that age and lymphovascular invasion were significant factors for recurrence in patients with low-grade cancer (p =.049 and p =.019, respectively), whereas perineural invasion was the only significant factor in patients with high-grade cancer (p =.001). The most frequent recurrence site tends to be different according to histologic grade: local recurrence at low-grade cancer (8.3%) and distant at high-grade cancer (13.6%). The duration of RFS was significantly longer in low-grade cancer than high-grade cancer in regional and distant recurrence (p =.044 and p =.016, respectively). Conclusion Consideration of different factors may be required for individual low-grade and high-grade parotid cancers when predicting the risk of recurrence.