Patient and Tumor Characteristics in Advanced Major Salivary Gland Carcinoma Patients Receiving Palliative Therapy

Background The prognosis of advanced major salivary gland (MSG) carcinoma is poor. The objective of this study is to determine the trends and characteristics associated between palliative therapy and metastatic and locally advanced MSG carcinoma. Methods The 2004–2016 National Cancer Database was queried for all patients with advanced stage (III,IV,IVa,IVb,IVc) MSG carcinoma. Cases were grouped based on palliative care status. Palliative care consisted of surgery, radiation, systemic, or combination therapy. Statistical analyses were performed to determine the association between patient and tumor characteristics. Results 5,330 patients met inclusion criteria, of which 4378 patients (82.1%) had locally advanced MSG carcinoma and 952 patients (17.2%) had metastatic carcinoma. 1.8% and 22.1% of patients received palliative care in the locally advanced carcinoma and metastatic group, respectively. Multivariate regression showed age as an independent predictive factor of receiving palliative therapy in the metastatic and locally advanced group (p = 0.027, p < 0.001), respectively. Node positivity (p < 0.035) was an independent predictor in the locally advanced group and uninsured status (p = 0.017) was an independent predictor in the metastatic group. Conclusions Our study showed only 5.4% of the cohort received palliative care, emphasizing the need to address obstacles for patients in receiving high quality care.