Signet ring cell adenocarcinoma of the oropharynx: Presentation of a rare case and review of the literature

So far only few cases of oropharyngeal SRCAs have been published. These tumours turned out to be either metastases from gastric or lower gastrointestinal primaries, or had the small salivary glands as origin. In all published cases, as well as in our case, radical surgical resection was the first step of a curative therapy trial. Adjuvant targeted therapy with drugs like, e.g. herceptin or imatinib was not possible because of genetic and immunhistochemical findings. Because of the small numbers of published cases, an evaluation long-term outcomes and significance of different adjuvant therapy regimes is barely possible at this time.