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Salivary gland cancer

Surgical removal is the first line treatment for salivary gland malignancies, whenever possible. Many of the surgical interventions to treat these malignancies are not fundamentally different from surgical techniques for the treatment of non-malignant conditions of salivary glands.

Non-malignant salivary gland conditions are far more common than malignancies; this is the reason why we describe surgical interventions (in particular procedures to remove sublingual, submandibular or parotid glands) in the section covering the treatment of non-malignant salivary gland conditions.

There are some differences in the surgical (and additional) treatment schemes between malignant and non-malignant salivary gland conditions. Of relevance for the treatment of malignant salivary gland conditions are the following points.