Sino-nasal adenocarcinoma: epidemiological and clinico-pathological study of 34 cases

Thirty-four cases of sino-nasal adenocarcinoma treated between 1976 and 1992 are presented. The purpose of this work is the epidemiological analysis of this disease and to put forward a classification of the lesions according to their degree of differentiation, based on the histopathological examination of 29 tumors. The risk increase of having a sino-nasal neoplasia was significant in the population exposed to wood dust in their working environment--896 times greater (540 in the male population) for adenocarcinoma and 20 times greater for squamous-cell adenocarcinoma. The proposed histopathological classification divides these lesions according to their degree of differentiation. In this series 23 well-differentiated cases were found, three moderately differentiated and three colloid-type. The five-year determinate survival of this series was 30%. The tumor stage (especially intracranial involvement) was the only significant clinico-pathological parameter that impaired the survival.