Abstract
Cancers of the head and neck—including cancers of the buccal cavity, head and neck subset, larynx, pharynx, thyroid, salivary glands, and nose/nasal passages—account for approximately 6% of all malignancies in the United States and accounted for approximately 3% of new malignancy cases in 2020 (Howlader et al. SEER cancer statistics review, 1975–2017. Bethesda: National Cancer Institute; 2020. https://seer.cancer.gov/csr/1975_2017/, based on November 2019 SEER data submission, posted to the SEER web site). Careful analysis of nodes in the neck and knowledge of the various compartments are critical in the assessment and staging of primary head and neck malignancies. Regardless of the site of the primary tumor, the presence of a single metastatic lymph node in either the ipsilateral or the contralateral side of the neck reduces the 5-year survival rate by about 50%. The risk of cervical metastasis depends on the site of origin of the primary tumor (Robbins et al. Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 128:751–8, 2002).
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References
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Foran, A.T., Harisinghani, M.G. (2021). Head and Neck Lymph Node Anatomy. In: Harisinghani, M.G. (eds) Atlas of Lymph Node Anatomy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80899-0_1
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