Prognostic value of clinical and pathologic T stages defined by the American Joint Committee on Cancer for eyelid sebaceous carcinoma in Korea.

PURPOSE: To investigate whether the clinical and pathologic T category classification, as defined by the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC), is associated with lymph nodes (LN) or distant metastasis in patients with eyelid sebaceous carcinoma.

METHODS: Forty patients treated for eyelid sebaceous carcinoma at Seoul National University Hospital between March 1999 and December 2011 were retrospectively staged according to the AJCC 7th edition criteria. Three different primary tumor classifications-(1) clinical tumor size at presentation; (2) clinical AJCC T stage (cT) at presentation based not only on size, but also on the extent of involvement and (3) pathologic AJCC T stage (pT) based on histopathological examination-were compared and evaluated with regard to their association with LN or distant metastasis.

RESULTS: In univariate analysis, the AJCC cT (p = 0.005) and pT (p = 0.029) categories were significantly associated with metastasis, but clinical tumor size alone did not correlate with metastasis (p = 0.093). Clinical and pathologic AJCC stage T2b or higher tumors were significantly associated with metastasis compared to stage T1 or T2a tumors [odds ratio cT, 8.00 (p = 0.025); pT, 6.91 (p = 0.028)].

CONCLUSIONS: The clinical and pathologic AJCC T category has predictive value for LN or distant metastasis in eyelid sebaceous carcinoma. However, the clinically assessed largest tumor dimension alone is not an effective predictive factor. Clinicians should be aware of the increased risk of metastasis in patients with tumors of stage T2b or higher at initial presentation.