Adenoid cystic carcinoma

Adenoid cystic cancer (AdCC) is a very rare type of cancer that can exist in many different body sites. It most often occurs in the areas of the head and neck, in particular the salivary glands; but has also been reported in the breast, lacrimal gland of the eye, lung, brain, bartholin gland, and the trachea. It is sometimes referred to as adenocyst, malignant cylindroma, adenocystic, adenoidcystic, ACC, AdCC.

 Treatment

Primary treatment for this cancer, regardless of body site, is surgical removal with clean margins. This can be challenging in the head and neck region due to this tumour's tendency spread along nerve tracts. Adjuvant or palliative radiotherapy is commonly given following surgery. Chemotherapy is used for metastatic disease. Chemotherapy is considered on a case by case basis, as there is little data on the positive effects of chemotherapy. Clinical studies are ongoing, however.

Recently, one of the women with a patient journal was treated with Radiofrequency ablation for metastatic tumors in the lung. Radio frequency ablation is a relatively new technique in the treatment of cancers, generally soft-tissue areas such as the liver and lungs, especially ones that make normal surgery not an option. In this patient's case, she had 6 small (largest had grown to 2 cm when she went in for surgery) metastatic tumors in both of her lungs. Since surgical removal of both lungs is (obviously) not an option, pinpoint targeting of tumors with a microwave to "cook" the cancerous tumor was a much better option. As far as her doctor could tell, this is the first attempt at using this procedure on AdCC. There has also been some work in the lungs, albeit with other forms of cancer, with cryo-ablation which freezes rather than cooks the tumor.