Mardassi A, Mathlouthi N, Hlila N, Halouani C, Mezri S, Zgolli C, Chebbi G, Mhamed RB, Akkari K, Benzarti S. Synchronous carcinoma of head and neck: 2 cases report. World J Otorhinolaryngol 2015; 5(2): 74-77 [DOI: 10.5319/wjo.v5.i2.74]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Dr. Ali Mardassi, MD, Ear Nose and Throat Department, the Military Hospital Tunis, Tunis 1008, Tunisia. alimardassi@gmail.com
Research Domain of This Article
Otorhinolaryngology
Article-Type of This Article
Case Report
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Ali Mardassi, Nabil Mathlouthi, Nawel Hlila, Chiraz Halouani, Sameh Mezri, Cyrine Zgolli, Ghassen Chebbi, Rania Ben Mhamed, Khemaies Akkari, Sonia Benzarti, Ear Nose and Throat Department, the Military Hospital Tunis, Tunis 1008, Tunisia
Author contributions: All authors contributed to the collection and the analysis of the data and to the redaction of the manuscript.
Ethics approval: The case report was approved by the medical committee of ethics of the Military Hospital Tunis, Tunisia.
Informed consent: The patient provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest: Nothing to declare.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Ali Mardassi, MD, Ear Nose and Throat Department, the Military Hospital Tunis, Tunis 1008, Tunisia. alimardassi@gmail.com
Telephone: +216-22-552252
Received: September 25, 2014 Peer-review started: September 25, 2014 First decision: January 8, 2015 Revised: January 23, 2015 Accepted: February 9, 2015 Article in press: February 11, 2015 Published online: May 28, 2015 Processing time: 238 Days and 9.5 Hours
Abstract
Multiple primary cancers are becoming an increasingly frequent situation and are often the source of many diagnostic and therapeutic difficulties. We report the case of two patients diagnosed with head and neck synchronous carcinomas. The first case is a 33-year-old man with a history of a keratinizing squamous cell carcinoma of the eye lid and who was operated 4 mo later from a mucoepidermoid carcinoma of the submandibular salivary gland. The second case is a 71-year-old woman who underwent a total parotidectomy for a mucoepidermoïd carcinoma of the left parotid gland and who consulted 2 mo later for epistaxis. The explorations concluded to a squamous cell carcinoma of the nasopharynx. The patient had a complementary radiotherapy. No local neither distant recurrence of the two tumors has been detected after a follow-up of 36 mo in the first case and 24 mo in the second one.
Core tip: Patients with head and neck cancer have a high risk of developing a simultaneous locoregional tumor. At the time of cancer diagnosis and during the follow-up, the clinician must search carefully for a second neoplasm which may reduce significantly the survival expectancy and have to be managed accurately. This paper describes and discusses, over two observations, the clinical and therapeutic features of these multiple primary cancers.