Background: Malignant tumors of the salivary glands comprise about 3% to 5% of all head and neck carcinomas. The purpose of our study was to find possible predictive and/or prognostic markers for parotid cancer.
Methods: A total of 46 tissue samples of carcinomas of the parotid gland were immunohistochemically stained for ß-catenin, cyclin D1, and PIN1. The factors were analyzed regarding their prognostic value for disease-free and overall survival.
Results: An overexpression of the cytoplasmatic ß-catenin was linked to a statistically significant worse outcome regarding disease-free (p = .0296) and overall survival (p = .0416). The 5-year overall survival was 83.9% in patients without and 0% in patients presenting with overexpression of cytoplasmatic ß-catenin. Additionally, Union Internationale Contre le Cancer (UICC) stage correlated with overall survival (p = .0306) and disease-free survival (DFS; p = .0473).
Conclusion: Multivariate analysis showed that overexpression of cytoplasmatic ß-catenin and the UICC stage are 2 independent prognostic markers for survival in patients with parotid cancer.
Keywords: Cyclin D1; PIN1; parotid cancer; salivary gland cancer; ß-catenin.
© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.