A proposal of TNM classification system for cancer of the salivary gland--comprehensive retrospective study.
Until recently, there has not been a sufficient number of cases of salivary gland cancer to permit the development of a clinically useful TNM classification system. A comprehensive retrospective study of 354 patients with cancer of the parotid gland from 46 institutions in Japan was carried out at the request of the Japanese Committee on TNM Classification (JJC), and we propose JJC T-categories for parotid gland cancer. The characteristic of this proposal involves T-categories determined according to tumor size. Fixed tumors or tumors with facial nerve involvement were classified as T4 regardless of tumor size. In 1983, the AJC proposal for a TNM classification system of salivary gland cancers was tentatively approved at a AJC/UICC joint meeting. In comparison with the AJC classification, our proposal seems to be better in terms of simplicity and the balanced distribution in T-categories of parotid gland cancers.
D006801:Humans; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D010307:Parotid Neoplasms / Q000145:classification* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology; D012189:Retrospective Studies