Surgery of major salivary gland cancers: REFCOR recommendations by the formal consensus method

Objective

To determine the role of surgery of the primary tumor site in the management of primary major salivary gland cancer.

Material and methods

The French Network of Rare Head and Neck Tumors (REFCOR) formed a steering group, which drafted a non-systematic narrative review of the literature published on Medline, and proposed recommendations. The level of adherence to the recommendations was then assessed by a rating group, according to the formal consensus method.

Results

Treatment of salivary gland tumor is mainly surgical. The gold standard for parotid cancer is a total parotidectomy, to obtain clear margins and remove all intraparotid lymph nodes. For low-grade tumors, partial parotidectomy with wide excision of the tumor is acceptable in the case of postoperative diagnosis on definitive histology. In the event of positive margins on definitive analysis, revision surgery should be assessed for feasibility, and performed if possible.

Conclusion

Treatment of primary major salivary gland cancer is based on surgery with clear resection margins, as far away as possible from the tumor. The type of surgery depends on tumor location, pathologic type and extension.