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Multicenter Study
. 2021 Feb;10(3):1120-1127.
doi: 10.1002/cam4.3707. Epub 2021 Jan 15.

Multicentre clinicopathological study of adenoid cystic carcinoma: A report of 296 cases

Zheng Huang  1 , Juan Pan  2 , Jiaorong Chen  3 , Shidi Wu  4 , Ting Wu  4 , Haihua Ye  4 , Hongfeng Zhang  1 , Xiu Nie  2 , Changzheng Huang  4
Affiliations
Multicenter Study

Multicentre clinicopathological study of adenoid cystic carcinoma: A report of 296 cases

Zheng Huang et al. Cancer Med. 2021 Feb.

Abstract

Aims: Adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC) is a distinctive tumour. Limited studies involving a large population have reported multicentre systematic analyses of the clinical, pathological and immunohistochemical (IHC) features of ACC as well as the potential role of IHC markers in the prognosis of ACC.

Methods and results: The clinical, histopathological and IHC data of 296 cases obtained from two tertiary hospitals were analysed. The age at onset ranged from 12 to 87 years with a median age of 52 years. The male-to-female ratio was 1:1.3. Patients with ACC arising from the lacrimal gland were younger than those with tumours arising from other sites. Patients with tumours in the extra auditory canal and nasopharynx were older than those with tumours in other locations. Histopathologically, solid type ACC was the most frequent in the nasal cavity and paranasal sinus (6/51) group. Tumours arising from the oral cavity most commonly showed perineural invasion (10/60) and margin positivity (11/60). IHC analyses showed that CK8/18, CK7, CK14, epithelial membrane antigen and CD117 were expressed in 35/35 (100%), 87/88 (98.8%), 26/27 (96.2%), 42/43 (97.6%) and 113/120 (94.1%) patients, respectively. CK5/6, P63, smooth muscle actin, calponin and S100 were positively expressed in 73/73 (100%), 111/124 (89.5%), 38/43 (88.3%), 41/50 (82.0%) and 61/92 (66.3%) cases, respectively. S100 proteins were expressed in 54 (54/77) primary cases and two (2/9) metastatic cases (p = 0.013).

Conclusions: ACC is a distinctive tumour that mainly affects middle-aged and elderly individuals, with a mild female predominance. Loss of expression of S100 proteins may be a poor prognostic factor associated with metastasis.

Keywords: S100; adenoid cystic carcinoma; clinicopathological analysis; metastasis.

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Conflict of interest statement

All authors have no conflicts of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Sex ratio in each group
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Mean age (standard deviation) in each group. Patients with adenoid cystic carcinoma arising from the lacrimal gland showed the lowest median age (39 years, mean = 41.85 years). The highest median age (60.5 years, mean = 59.7 years) was observed in the nasopharynx group. The detailed p‐values are presented in Table 3
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Scatter diagram of the time to recurrence or metastasis after surgery
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Primary sites of tumours that showed metastasis
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
Summary of the recurrence sites
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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