ABSTRACT
Adenoid cystic carcinoma is the most frequent malignant tumor of the minor salivary glands. It is characterized by a slow, but aggressive, clinical evolution, which tends to produce distant metastases even years after the initial surgical treatment. We present a clinical study of 19 patients with adenoid cystic carcinoma of the minor salivary glands that were treated with surgery and radiotherapy. The survival (vital) prognosis for this study declined in the third year after initial treatment, with recurrence and distant metastases occurring several years after treatment. Therefore, the clinical course of this disease requires long-term follow-up of patients.
Subject(s)
Carcinoma, Adenoid Cystic/radiotherapy , Carcinoma, Adenoid Cystic/surgery , Salivary Gland Neoplasms/radiotherapy , Salivary Gland Neoplasms/surgery , Salivary Glands, Minor/surgery , Adult , Aged , Combined Modality Therapy , Female , Follow-Up Studies , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Recurrence , Retrospective StudiesABSTRACT
Voice disorders in children are often described as existing on a continuum with anatomic or physiologic causes at one end and functional or psychogenic causes at the other. In this study we report the objective evaluation of the voice disorders on 48 school children. The evaluation was made by means of laryngostroboscopy, acoustic analysis of the voice and narrow-band spectrography. The stroboscopic examination was performed on more than a half of the patients, resulting in the change of diagnose in six cases. The severity of the hoarseness was classified in four groups according Yanagihara method. A multivariate analysis was carried out using jitter, shimmer and harmonic-to-noise ratio as variables. Only the harmonic-to-noise ratio predicts the severity of the spectrographic record. Classification of degrees of hoarseness is found to be clinically useful in two respects: the degree of hoarseness can be numerically expressed and the objective acoustic degree of hoarseness based on this method closely agrees with subjective perceived degree of hoarseness.
Subject(s)
Hoarseness/diagnosis , Laryngoscopy/methods , Adolescent , Child , Female , Humans , Male , Predictive Value of Tests , Severity of Illness Index , Sound Spectrography , Voice QualityABSTRACT
Paragangliomas of the head and neck are rare tumors of neuroectodermal origin. However, jugulotympanic paragangliomas are the second most common tumor of the temporal bone. Paragangliomas are recognized as benign tumors, but some show a biological behavior similar to that of malignant lesions, such as the development of recurrence or invasive growth patterns. We report 31 patients with a total of 35 paragangliomas who were seen in our department. Multiple paragangliomas were found in 2 patients. Twenty-two patients had jugulotympanic paragangliomas, 11 carotid and 2 vagal paragangliomas. None of the patients had prior treatment and the minimum follow-up was 1 year. Surgery was performed in 28 (90%), primary irradiation in 1 (3%), and 2 (7%) refused treatment. We describe our results, the clinical course, diagnostic methods and treatment options.
