The Editor
Current Oncology
May 21, 2013
We thank the writers of the letter to the editor titled “Adenocarcinoma not otherwise specified or cribriform adenocarcinoma on dorsum of tongue?” for their interest in our paper “Adenocarcinoma not otherwise specified on dorsum of tongue: case report and literature review”1. We appreciate the time and effort they took in providing their opinion on our paper, and we enjoyed their response and thoroughness.
The letter provides a nice summary of cribriform adenocarcinoma of minor salivary gland (camsg) origin, a tumour originally described in 1999, but not fully studied until 2011 by Skalova et al.2. Our adenocarcinoma nos [not otherwise s pecified] certainly had some features that suggest a diagnosis of camsg, including the low-power architecture of the tumour and the results of the immunohistochemical panel. However, its nuclei lacked the expected “ground glass” quality, instead resembling papillary carcinoma of the thyroid.
I would draw the reader’s attention to the Case Description section. In that section, we mention that the patient presented to our institution in December 2005, when the material was examined. At that time, camsg was not fully recognized (it had been briefly mentioned in the latest issue of the World Health Organization classification). We therefore made a diagnosis of adenocarcinoma nos.
When we were preparing the case for publication, we were aware of Dr. Skalova’s work on camsg. The main purpose of our paper was to discuss the management of our patient’s case and to review the literature on management of adenocarcinoma at a particular site. Therefore, we believed it was more important to publish the case using the diagnosis made at the time and on which treatment was based.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST DISCLOSURES
The author has no conflicts of interest to declare.
REFERENCES
- 1.Market Velker BA, Louie AV, Velker VM, Kwan KF, Franklin JH, Venkatesan VM. Adenocarcinoma not otherwise specified on dorsum of tongue: case report and literature review. Curr Oncol. 2012;19:e358–63. doi: 10.3747/co.19.1091. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 2.Skalova A, Sima R, Kaspirkova–Nemcova J, et al. Cribriform adenocarcinoma of minor salivary gland origin principally affecting the tongue: characterization of new entity. Am J Surg Pathol. 2011;35:1168–76. doi: 10.1097/PAS.0b013e31821e1f54. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]