Epidemiological Study of Salivary Sarcoma in Iran, 2009 - 2014

Background: Salivary cancers are relatively uncommon with important types of head and neck malignancies with poor prognosis in the vast majority of cases. Objectives: Prompt diagnosis and treatment are critical to attaining a good prognosis; hence, recognition of the epidemiological characteristics is worthwhile. Accordingly, in this study, the epidemiological characteristics of cases with salivary sarcoma among Iranian patients were assessed. Methods: In this epidemiological study, 70 consecutive cases with salivary sarcoma in Iran within 22 provinces were assessed from 2009 to 2014. The dataset utilized in this study was sourced from the Iran National Cancer Registry (INCR). These included both parotid (n = 53) and major salivary glands (n = 17). The age, sex, anatomical location, province, and year were the main variables extracted from existing medical data. Results: The present study reports 53 cases of parotid tumor sarcoma, with the mixed tumor exhibiting a predominant malignant component being the most frequently observed pathological subtype. The preponderance of these instances was noted among individuals classified as adults within the working demographic (ranging from 15 to 64 years of age). However, our age-adjusted incidence rate indicates a higher occurrence of salivary gland tumors in individuals above 64. The study reported 17 instances of sarcomas in other major salivary glands, with the malignant type mixed tumor being the most frequently occurring subtype within this group. The gender distribution did not exhibit a statistically significant pattern. Conclusions: Thoroughly, according to the obtained results in this study, it may be concluded that salivary sarcoma in the Iranian population is usually the mixed malignant tumor subtype and there are similar patterns according to the age and sex in patients with slight male predominance (F/M ratio: 0.75).