Contemporary therapeutic management of locally advanced hypopharyngeal cancer: oncologic and functional outcomes - a report on 100 cases

Conclusion: A significant proportion of patients with locally advanced hypopharyngeal cancer could not be managed by larynx-sparing therapy. T4 stage is one of the main predictive factors of oncologic and functional outcomes.

Objectives: To analyze the therapeutic management of patients with locally advanced hypopharyngeal cancer in clinical practice and to report oncologic and functional outcomes.

Methods: This was a retrospective study of all patients treated for a locally advanced hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma between 2001 and 2012 at our institution.

Results: A total of 100 patients were included in this study. Induction chemotherapy (CT) followed by radiotherapy (RT) ± CT, primary RT + CT, and primary total pharyngolaryngectomy (TPL) comprised the initial therapeutic management for 54, 24, and 20 patients, respectively. Two patients received only supportive care. Overall survival (OS) and cause-specific survival (SS) were 50% and 60% at 3 years, respectively. In the group of patients referred for induction CT, the 3-year OS and SS were 58% and 70%, respectively. In multivariate analysis, T stage (p = 0.05) and ASA score (p = 0.02) were significant predictive factors of OS. T4 tumor stage had a pejorative impact on swallowing function after therapy (p = 0.006). The rate of patients alive, disease-free, and with a functional larynx at 2 years was 23%.