Adenoid cystic carcinoma: DNA as a prognostic indicator.

A retrospective study was performed on 20 patients with adenoid cystic carcinomas of major salivary glands to see if DNA patterns correlated with their prognoses. Fourteen tumors were found to be DNA diploid; 6 were DNA aneuploid. Histologically, all DNA-aneuploid tumors had solid components, compared with only 5 of the DNA-diploid tumors. All of the DNA-aneuploid tumors recurred, in contrast to only 2 of the DNA-diploid tumors; the difference was highly significant (P less than 0.001). All of the patients with no recurrences had DNA-diploid tumors. In our study, DNA measurements of adenoid cystic carcinomas gave statistically significant information about prognosis and correlated to histological grading. We propose that evaluation of DNA content may be performed before planning the treatment of adenoid cystic carcinomas.