Published in:
Open Access
01-12-2010 | Review
Epithelial-myoepithelial carcinoma of the tongue base: a case for the case-report and review of the literature
Authors:
Peter Peters, Costa Repanos, James Earnshaw, Patrick Stark, Bryan Burmeister, Lloyd McGuire, Susanne Jeavons, William B Coman AM
Published in:
Head & Neck Oncology
|
Issue 1/2010
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Abstract
A 60 year old lady was referred to the Princess Alexandra Hospital (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia) tertiary Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Unit from a peripheral hospital for investigation and management of a tumour at the base of the tongue. Biopsy of the tumour revealed it to be an epithelial-myoepithelial carcinoma of the base of the tongue. This is an extremely rare tumour in this location with only 2 other case reports in the world literature: the patients were treated with chemo-radiotherapy and surgery respectively. Our patient was made aware of the world literature and was able to make a fully informed decision on her choice of treatment modality and was treated with radiotherapy. Increasingly journals are limiting publication of case reports to "world firsts" only. We present a case where such a policy would have denied patient choice and possibly led to detrimental treatment.
We review the world literature of tongue base epithelial-myoepithelial carcinoma of the tongue.