The role of supracricoid laryngectomy for glottic carcinoma recurrence after radiotherapy failure: a critical review

Abstract

Conclusions.In the near future salvage supracricoid laryngectomy (SCL) will be used more extensively for failures of radiotherapy for glottic carcinoma. Objectives. Primary radiotherapy has been used for patients with early glottic carcinomas in northern Europe and North America for more than half a century. Local recurrences after radiotherapy for glottic malignancies occur in 5–25% for T1 carcinomas and in 15–50% for T2 carcinomas. The classic choice as salvage surgery in cases of glottic squamous cell carcinoma recurrence after irradiation failure is total laryngectomy. The development of extended conservation procedures such as SCL has permitted an increasing number of successful partial laryngectomies that save laryngeal functions after radiotherapy failure. SCL allows the creation of a neo-larynx, permitting both swallowing and speech; in most cases the tracheostoma can be closed. Methods. The electronic database Pubmed was searched without publication date limits. Results. Considering available data (103 cases), 84.5% of the cases treated with salvage SCL for irradiation failure did not present a new local recurrence; laryngeal recurrences after salvage SCL (15.5%) were successfully treated with total laryngectomy in 66.7% of the cases. Tracheostoma closure was possible in all except two cases after a mean period ranging between 12 and 28 days. Swallowing results seemed good, with longer recovery time in irradiated than in non-irradiated patients who underwent SCL. Voice quality determined with psychoacoustic methods had acceptable intelligibility.

• Supracricoid laryngectomy
• laryngeal carcinoma
• glottis
• irradiation failure
• salvage surgery