head and neck tumors: management of primary undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma

Introduction: sarcomas account for 1% of all tumors originated in the head and neck regions in adults. they constitute a heterogeneous group of tumors of mesenchymal origin with multiple histological variants. the undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma (ups) subtype is the most frequent variant with an incidence range of 2.7-38%.   materials and methods: this retrospective case series was conducted on 11 patients who were diagnosed with ups and treated in our institution in the last 11 years.   results: according to the results, 26.8% of the sarcomas corresponded to ups variant. out of 11 patients, 5 cases were female. the median age of the participants was 58 years (range: 18-74 years). seven and four patients were t1b and t2b, respectively. ten patients had no metastasis at the moment of diagnosis. six patients were categorized as intermediate-grade, and the remaining (n=5) were classified as high-grade. the most frequent location was the scalp (n=3). in the patients undergoing surgery, the mean follow-up duration was 52 months. disease-free survival (dfs) rates were obtained at 70%, 50%, and 50% in the 1st, 3rd, and 5th years, respectively, with the mean dfs of 36 months. in addition, the overall survival rates in the 1st, 3rd, and 5th years were 100%, 100%, and 83%, respectively.   conclusion: theups represented the most common histological subtype in our series. they tend to be intermediate or high-grade tumors. an acceptable global survival rate justifies surgical treatment as the main therapeutic tool.