Availability of Postoperative Radiotherapy and Chemotherapy for Head and Neck Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma

A retrospective study was performed of the data of 72 patients of adenoid cystic carcinoma who underwent treatment at Kyushu Cancer Center. In the 62 patients treated by surgery, there was no significant difference in the loco-regional control rate between the group that received postoperative radiotherapy and the group which did not receive postoperative radiotherapy. In the 25 patients who developed distant metastasis post initial treatment, the prognosis was significantly better in the group that received chemotherapy as compared to that in the group that did not receive chemotherapy (p = 0.0003). These results clearly indicate the importance of complete resection of adenoid cystic carcinoma at surgery. Furthermore, the patient group with successful loco-regional control showed a significantly lower frequency of distant metastasis as compared to the patient group with failure of loco-regional control (p = 0.01). We reconfirmed that success of loco-regional control was of the greatest importance in relation to the prognosis in patients with adenoid cystic carcinoma.