Background This retrospective study was designed to investigate the clinical characteristics, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of primary tracheobronchial mucoepidermoid carcinoma (MEC). Methods Clinical data were retrospectively analyzed from 32 patients with pathologically confirmed primary tracheobronchial MEC between January 1990 and December 2010 at Zhejiang Cancer Hospital. The Kaplan-Meier methods were used to estimate and compare survival rates. Results There were 19 males and 13 females ranging in age from 7 to 73 years, with a median age of 28 years. Twenty-six of the 32 patients were treated with surgery alone. The other six patients were treated with surgery plus postoperative radiotherapy or chemotherapy. Six patients died during the follow-up time. The overall five-year survival rates were 81.25%, whereas the five-year survival rate of seven patients with high-grade tumors was only 28.6%. Stage I and II patients experienced better survival than Stage III and IV patients (the five-year survival rate was 100% and 43.6% respectively, P Conclusions Primary tracheobronchial MEC is a rare disease. Histologic grading and TNM (tumor-node-metastasis)staging are independent prognostic factors. Surgical resection is the primary treatment.
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