Radiation therapy was used in the past, but is characterized by a high failure rate, and risk of lymphangitis, lymphedema, and lymphangiosarcoma. Laser treatment is popular for the treatment of oral cavity and airway lesions. The advantages are less post-op edema, less tissue trauma and less bleeding. In these areas conservative therapy may result in frequent recurrence, while aggressive resection may lead to unacceptably high morbidity. Multiple treatments are often necessary.
Complete exam is desirable, but can be difficult to achieve.
Incomplete resection is associated with higher recurrence rates. They found that extraparotid, suprahyoid were associated with the highest recurrence rates. Lesions involving more than one site also had significantly higher recurrence rates. No infrahyoid lesions caused feeding difficulties or airway compromise, whereas suprahyoid lesions were associated with delayed feeding and respiratory difficulty. Children with infrahyoid or posterior cervical lesions can expect to have a low surgical complication rate and low recurrence.