Elective neck treatment in sinonasal undifferentiated carcinoma: Systematic review and meta-analysis

Sinonasal undifferentiated carcinomas (SNUCs), being an aggressive malignancy with dismal survival outcome, have given limited consideration regarding management of regional failures. A total of 12 studies, published between 1999 and 2019, met inclusion criteria. We performed a meta-analysis assessing regional (neck) relapse after elective neck treatment compared to observation in clinically node negative (N0) necks. Clinical data of 255 patients were used for meta-analysis. Among them, 83.4% of patients presented with T4 tumors and 14.1% had positive neck nodes. Elective neck treatment was applied in 49.5% of analyzed patients. Regional relapses occurred in 3.7% of patients who have undergone elective neck treatment compared to 26.4% in patients who had not. Elective neck treatment significantly reduced the risk of regional recurrence (odds ratio 0.20; 95% confidence interval 0.08-0.49; P = .0004). The meta-analysis indicates that elective neck treatment could significantly reduce the risk of regional failures in patients with SNUCs.