Adenoid cystic carcinoma: the results of radical surgery.

A personal series of 267 salivary tumours seen in a 20-year period was reviewed. Thirty-six patients with a previously untreated histologically proven adenoid cystic carcinoma of the major and minor salivary glands were submitted to radical surgery. The 5-year survival was 73%; no patient died of disease or suffered a recurrence of disease beyond the 5-year mark, suggesting that radical surgery achieves good results and largely pre-empts the notorious pattern of repeated recurrence. Only 8% of the patients died solely of primary recurrence, suggesting that the place of supraradical surgery is likely to be very limited.