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.