Clinicopathological analysis and survival outcomes of primary salivary gland tumors in pediatric patients: A systematic review

Abstract Background Salivary gland tumors are a diverse group of uncommon neoplasms that are rare in pediatric patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinicopathological profile and survival outcomes of pediatric patients affected by salivary gland tumors. Materials and methods An extensive search was carried out using the MEDLINE/PubMed, EMBASE, Scopus databases, and grey literature. The risk of bias was available in all papers included. Results A total of 2,830 articles were initially retrieved with 54 remaining for data extraction, resulting in 2,937 cases. This comprised forty‐five case series’ and nine cohort studies. These tumors were slightly more prevalent in females (57.4%). The patients' age ranged from 0.3 to 19 years old, with a mean age of 13.3 years. Parotid was the most affected site (81.9%), and 99.2% of cases clinically exhibited a swelling. Presence of pain/tenderness was reported in 13.5% of the cases, with an average duration of 12.6 months for the appearance of symptoms. Most of the reported cases were malignant tumors (75.4%), with mucoepidermoid carcinoma the most common tumor of all tumors (44.8%), followed by pleomorphic adenoma (24.1%). Surgery alone was the leading treatment choice in 74.9% cases, and the 5‐year overall survival rate of patients was 93.1%. Patients with symptoms ( P = .001), local recurrence ( P < .001), metastasis ( P < .001), and those not undergoing surgery or surgery combined with radiotherapy ( P < .001) showed lower survival rates. Conclusion The pediatric patients present a high frequency of malignant salivary neoplasms and a high overall survival rate.