Key points
- Temporal bone squamous cell carcinomas (TBSCCs) are rare cancers of
the head and neck with overall poor prognosis.
- As they tend to spread locally, there is a dilemma if prophylactic
neck dissections should be performed in clinically staged N0 necks.
- We identified 9 studies containing 907 patients of which 388 had TBSCC
- 21 out of 191 patients who underwent elective neck dissection were
found to have positive lymph nodes giving a pooled occult metastases
rate of 11%
- As the rate of occult metastases increased with T- staging of the
tumour (pT2: 3%, pT3: 12%, pT4: 14%) and were most commonly found
in level 2 of the neck, we would recommend dissecting a minimum of
level II of the neck in pT3 and pT4 TBSCC.