Review

Epithelial-myoepithelial carcinoma of the tongue base: a case for the case-report and review of the literature

Peter Peters^1,3 , Costa Repanos¹ , James Earnshaw¹ , Patrick Stark¹ , Bryan Burmeister^2,3 , Lloyd McGuire^4,5 , Susanne Jeavons⁶ and William B Coman AM^1,3

¹  Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Princess Alexandra Hospital, Ipswich Rd, Woolloongabba, Queensland, Australia

²  Department of Radiation Oncology, Princess Alexandra Hospital, Ipswich Rd, Woolloongabba, Queensland, Australia

³  School of Medicine, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia

⁴  Queensland Health Pathology Service, Gold Coast Hospital, Nerang St, Southport, Queensland, Australia

⁵  Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University, Robina, Queensland, Australia

⁶  Radiology Department, Princess Alexandra Hospital, Ipswich Rd, Woolloongabba, Queensland, Australia

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Head & Neck Oncology 2010, 2:4doi:10.1186/1758-3284-2-4

Published:	2 February 2010

Abstract

A 60 year old lady was referred to the Princess Alexandra Hospital (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia) tertiary Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Unit from a peripheral hospital for investigation and management of a tumour at the base of the tongue. Biopsy of the tumour revealed it to be an epithelial-myoepithelial carcinoma of the base of the tongue. This is an extremely rare tumour in this location with only 2 other case reports in the world literature: the patients were treated with chemo-radiotherapy and surgery respectively. Our patient was made aware of the world literature and was able to make a fully informed decision on her choice of treatment modality and was treated with radiotherapy. Increasingly journals are limiting publication of case reports to "world firsts" only. We present a case where such a policy would have denied patient choice and possibly led to detrimental treatment.

We review the world literature of tongue base epithelial-myoepithelial carcinoma of the tongue.