Clinical features and prognostic factors for malignant parotid tumors in children and adolescents: A population-based study

Purpose: We performed a population-based cohort study to investigate the clinical characteristics and sur-vival rates of primary malignant parotid tumors (MPT) in children and adolescents. Methods: The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database was used to identify all pediatric and adolescent patients with MPT who were diagnosed between 2000 and 2018. Based on a number of parameters, survival curves were produced using Kaplane-Meier estimates. The log-rank test was used to compare survival curves. The influence of each component on overall survival (OS) was examined using a multivariate Cox proportional hazards model. Results: There were 352 identified pediatric and adolescent patients with MPT. At diagnosis, the age ranged from 1.0 to 19 years, with a median of 15 years. Mucoepidermoid carcinoma (MC) (46.5 %) was the most com-mon histological subtype, followed by acinar cell carcinoma (ACC) (36.4 %) and others (17.1 %) such as ade-noid cystic carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma. All patients had overall survival rates of 98.8 %, 95.6 %, and 94.6 % at 1-year, 3-year and 5-year, respectively. The results of the Cox proportional hazard regression showed that tumor grade, SEER stage, radiotherapy, and treatment regimens were significant independent predictors of overall survival. Conclusions: In pediatric and adolescent MPT, tumor grade, SEER stage, adjuvant radiation, and treatment regimens were found to be important independent predictors of survival. More research is required to vali-date the role of adjuvant radiation.(c) 2023 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.