OBJECTIVE: To explore the risk factors of radiation-induced oral mucositis (RIOM) in patients with head and neck tumors undergoing radiotherapy.
METHODS: A retrospective collection was conducted on patients with head and neck tumors who underwent radiotherapy and chemotherapy in our hospital from April 1, 2015 to April 1, 2019. They were divided into an incidence group (n=48) and a non-incidence group (n=76) based on whether RIOM occurred, and relevant data was collected for comparison.
RESULTS: There were statistically significant differences between the two groups of patients in terms of tumor type, smoking percentage, education level percentage, tumor stage, oral mucosal inflammation stage, radiotherapy dose, mucosal protectants, and oral hygiene condition(P<0.05); The regression analysis results showed that smoking (OR=1.274, 95% CI: 1.095-2.007), high-dose radiotherapy (OR=1.223, 95% CI: 1.098-2.077), and poor oral hygiene (OR=1.367, 95% CI: 1.024-2.890) were risk factors for RIOM.
CONCLUSIONS: Smoking, high-dose radiotherapy, and poor oral hygiene were risk factors for RIOM in head and neck patients after radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

Melanoma is a malignant neoplasm of melanoblasts, which are the precursors of the melanocytes arising from the neural crest cells. Melanomas can occur at various sites like the skin, eyes, upper esophagus, and meninges due to the migration of neural crest cells. Usually, the prognostic factors are decided based on the Breslow index. This case report describes a 61-year-old female who presented with the complaint of pinkish irregular swelling over the left side of her face for six months. The patient had a surgical resection, and the condition was determined to be invasive melanoma following confirmation by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and histological examination. Through our case report, we aim to shed light on the existing protocol for managing malignant melanoma while also exploring new aspects of presentation and multidisciplinary action.

Objective:To investigate the clinical features, imaging findings, pathological phenotype, treatment and prognosis of unicentric Castleman disease in the children\'s neck, in order to improve the understanding of CD among Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery. Methods:Retrospective cross-sectional, observational study was undertaken in Kunming Children\'s Hospital, from the archival data between January July 2015 and June 2020. Only 6 cases of CD were identified after studying the histomorphological characteristics and neck mass diagnosed. The imaging and pathological features were summarized and the pathogenesis was discussed. Results:Among the 6 cases of Castleman disease, five were male and one was female. Histopathology: Five cases were hyaline vascular subtype, one was mixed type. The uniform clinicopathologic features seen in all hyaline vascular subtype of CD included atrophic germinal centre with lymphocyte depletion, concentric rings of small lymphocytes, increased vascularity and predominance of high endothelial vessels in interfollicular region. Twinning, in which two or more germinal centers are combined and surrounded by lymphocytes in the mantle zone was observed in two cases with lollipop pattern at the same time. All the cases underwent complete surgical resection, the median follow-up time was 48 months（26, 84）, both of them had good prognosis. Conclusion:Most cases of unicentric type CD in children are diagnosed late, which is clinical showed by painless lymphadenopathy. The most common pathological type is hyaline vascular. The overall prognosis of surgical treatment was good.
目的：探讨儿童颈部单中心型Castleman病的临床特点、影像学表现、病理表型、治疗和预后，以期提高耳鼻咽喉头颈外科医师对Castleman病的认识。 方法：回顾性横断面分析2015年7月-2020年6月在昆明市儿童医院经病理诊断为Castleman病、肿物在颈部的6例患儿临床资料，总结其影像学和病理特征，探讨其发生机制。 结果：6例Castleman病患儿中，男5例，女1例。组织病理学：透明血管型5例，混合型1例。透明血管型中观察到一致的病理特征是：萎缩的生发中心伴淋巴细胞削减、增生的套细胞呈同心圆状排列、大量的血管增生，且在滤泡间区高内皮小静脉的增生占据主导地位。2例患儿表现出生发中心双胞胎/花椰菜形多胞胎的同时，观察到“棒棒糖”外观的形成。所有患儿均接受了病灶完整手术切除治疗，随访中位时间48（26，84）个月，预后良好。 结论：儿童颈部单中心型Castleman病大多数延迟确诊，多表现为无痛性淋巴结肿大，病理类型以透明血管型为主，外科手术治疗整体预后良好。.

Aim: This article aims to identify risk factors for severe radiation-induced oral mucositis (RIOM) in head and neck cancer (HNC) patients. In addition, we intend to establish a predictive model in patients undergoing intensity-modulated radiotherapy. Patients & methods: In this retrospective study, several HNC patients (n = 179) treated at Zhejiang Provincial People\'s Hospital from January 2019 to June 2023 were considered. The recruited subjects were divided into modeling and validation groups. The experimental data on clinical characteristics and treatment were collected and analyzed to identify predictive factors for severe RIOM based on the logistic regression approach. Results: The results indicated that severe RIOM occurred in 55.3% of patients. Accordingly, significant predictors included smoking history, diabetes, concurrent chemotherapy, cumulative radiation dose and weight loss of ≥5% in relative to admission weight. A nomogram based on these factors was validated, showing excellent predictive accuracy. Conclusion: In summary, the predictive model could effectively identify high-risk patients for severe RIOM, enabling the design of targeted interventions and improving patient management during radiotherapy.
[Box: see text].

Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) has been widely used in treating head and neck tumors. However, due to the complex anatomical structures in the head and neck region, it is challenging for the plan optimizer to rapidly generate clinically acceptable IMRT treatment plans. A novel deep learning multi-scale Transformer (MST) model was developed in the current study aiming to accelerate the IMRT planning for head and neck tumors while generating more precise prediction of the voxel-level dose distribution. The proposed end-to-end MST model employs the shunted Transformer to capture multi-scale features and learn a global dependency, and utilizes 3D deformable convolution bottleneck blocks to extract shape-aware feature and compensate the loss of spatial information in the patch merging layers. Moreover, data augmentation and self-knowledge distillation are used to further improve the prediction performance of the model. The MST model was trained and evaluated on the OpenKBP Challenge dataset. Its prediction accuracy was compared with three previous dose prediction models: C3D, TrDosePred, and TSNet. The predicted dose distributions of our proposed MST model in the tumor region are closest to the original clinical dose distribution. The MST model achieves the dose score of 2.23 Gy and the DVH score of 1.34 Gy on the test dataset, outperforming the other three models by 8%-17%. For clinical-related DVH dosimetric metrics, the prediction accuracy in terms of mean absolute error (MAE) is 2.04% for D 99 , 1.54% for D 95 , 1.87% for D 1 , 1.87% for D mean , 1.89% for D 0.1 c c , respectively, superior to the other three models. The quantitative results demonstrated that the proposed MST model achieved more accurate voxel-level dose prediction than the previous models for head and neck tumors. The MST model has a great potential to be applied to other disease sites to further improve the quality and efficiency of radiotherapy planning.

Synovial sarcomas are uncommon and highly aggressive sarcomas. Typically, they start in the soft tissues of the extremities, although they may develop in the head and neck region in rare cases. When they do, they usually present with localized symptoms in the affected area. Our patient is a 20-year-old man without a medical history who complained of a three-month history of submental swelling of the left side with a non-tender, palpable 5 cm mass. Initially believed to be a plunging ranula, the patient underwent transoral excision of the left submandibular soft tissue mass in the neck by the ear, nose, and throat (ENT) specialist. The pathological analysis of the mass confirmed the presence of a poorly differentiated synovial sarcoma. A postoperative neck imaging was performed, which showed a significant decrease in mass size compared to the previous imaging; however, the mass was still present. This is one of the few described cases of a poorly differentiated synovial sarcoma located on the floor of the mouth. Therefore, it highlights the importance of considering it as a possible differential diagnosis of head and neck pathologies.

Surgery on head and neck masses presents unique challenges to overcome, especially in relation to preoperative anesthesia induction. Tumor proximity to the carotid sinus can result in extreme hemodynamic depression, by way of compression or direct invasion of the node. Neck hyperextension required for endotracheal intubation can worsen the underlying compression. Additionally, many anesthetic agents have sympatholytic properties that can exacerbate this imbalance further toward the parasympathetic response. We present a case of a patient with non-Hodgkin lymphoma whose tumor compression of the carotid sinus precipitated an exaggerated vagal reflex response following fentanyl administration.

A rare and locally aggressive vascular tumor, juvenile nasopharyngeal angiofibroma (JNA) mostly affects male teenagers. This paper describes a 14-year-old male patient who presented with lethargy and recurrent nasal bleeding, which are symptoms of JNA. CT and MRI scans confirmed a vascular mass with a significant local invasion originating from the sphenopalatine foramen. After a CT angiography, which revealed the tumor\'s large blood supply and helped with efficient excision, a focused surgical strategy was designed. Histopathology verified the benign nature of the tumor, and the operation was successful and the patient had a smooth recovery. This case adds to the little literature on JNA. It highlights the need for healthcare professionals to be aware of the requirement of early identification and careful presurgical preparation in managing the illness.

High-risk human papillomaviruses are well-established drivers of several cancer types including cervical, head and neck, penile as well as anal cancers. While the E6 and E7 viral oncoproteins have proven to be critical for malignant transformation, evidence is also beginning to emerge suggesting that both host pathways and additional viral genes may also be pivotal for malignant transformation. Here, we focus on the role of host APOBEC genes, which have an important role in molecular editing including in the response to the viral DNA and their role in HPV-driven carcinogenesis. Further, we also discuss data developed suggesting the existence of HPV-derived miRNAs in HPV + tumors and their potential role in regulating the host transcriptome. Collectively, while recent advances in these two areas have added complexity to the working model of papillomavirus-induced oncogenesis, these discoveries have also shed a light onto new areas of research that will be required to fully understand the process.

Diagnosing a soft tissue tumor in the head and neck region can be challenging due to its complex anatomy and diverse histological spectrum. This case report highlights the case of a woman who presented with a painless neck lump in the posterior triangle of the neck. Various pathological and imaging studies were suggestive of pleomorphic adenoma, which arises from the left prevertebral space. The patient underwent complete surgical excision via the transcervical approach. Pleomorphic adenoma in the posterior triangle of the neck is extremely rare and causes a diagnostic dilemma in managing soft tissue tumors of the neck.