Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Jun 26, 2020; 8(12): 2610-2616
Published online Jun 26, 2020. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v8.i12.2610
Collision tumor of squamous cell carcinoma and neuroendocrine carcinoma in the head and neck: A case report
Shi-Hai Wu, Bao-Zhu Zhang, Ling Han
Shi-Hai Wu, Department of Radiation Oncology, the Second Clinical Medical College of Jinan University, Shenzhen People’s Hospital, Shenzhen 518020, Guangdong Province, China
Bao-Zhu Zhang, Department of Oncology, The People’s Hospital of Baoan, Shenzhen, The Affiliated Baoan Hospital of Southern Medical University, Shenzhen 518020, Guangdong Province, China
Ling Han, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, the Second Clinical Medical College of Jinan University, Shenzhen People’s Hospital, Shenzhen 518020, Guangdong Province, China
Author contributions: Wu SH and Zhang BZ contributed equally to this research; Wu SH collected the patient’s clinical data as the patient’s radiologist; Zhang BZ reviewed the literature and contributed to manuscript drafting; Han L interpreted the imaging findings and was responsible for the revision of the manuscript; all authors issued final approval for the version to be submitted.
Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81802732.
Informed consent statement: Informed written consent was obtained from the patient for publication of this report.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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/
Corresponding author: Ling Han, MD, Doctor, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, the Second Clinical Medical College of Jinan University, Shenzhen People’s Hospital, 1017 Dongmen North Road, Shenzhen 518020, Guangdong Province, China. hanlingsunny@163.com
Received: January 20, 2020
Peer-review started: January 20, 2020
First decision: April 1, 2020
Revised: April 24, 2020
Accepted: May 23, 2020
Article in press: May 23, 2020
Published online: June 26, 2020
Abstract
BACKGROUND

There are many disputes about the definition, diagnosis, therapy, and prognosis of collision tumors.

CASE SUMMARY

We describe a rare patient with a collision tumor consisting of neuroendocrine carcinoma (NEC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) in the nasal cavity and paranasal sinus. She received operation, concurrent chemoradiotherapy, and then two cycles of palliative chemotherapy. Follow-up at 12 mo after diagnosis showed that this patient experienced a complete response with no signs of recurrence or metastasis. A literature review of previous 26 cases diagnosed with collision tumor of NEC and SCC in the head and neck was also undertaken.

CONCLUSION

It is challenging to manage collision tumors because there are two morphologically and etiologically distinct tumors. Well-designed multimodality therapy including surgery and chemoradiotherapy might lead to a long survival in these patients.

Keywords: Collision tumor, Squamous carcinoma, Neuroendocrine carcinoma, Chemoradiotherapy, Head and neck, Case report

Core tip: It is rare to see collision carcinoma composed of squamous carcinoma and neuroendocrine carcinoma (NEC) in the head and neck region. In this paper, we present a case of squamous cell carcinoma and NEC colliding in the nasal cavity and paranasal sinus. Besides, 26 cases of collision carcinoma in the head and neck were also reviewed to further comprehend the multimodality therapy of collision carcinoma.