Objectives: To determine the incidence of local control in patients with "advanced" moderately to well-differentiated endolaryngeal invasive squamous cell carcinoma classified as T3, treated with a supracricoid partial laryngectomy; to identify any statistical relationship; and to analyze the consequences of local recurrence.
Design: Retrospective nonrandomized case series.
Setting: A tertiary referral care center and university teaching hospital.
Patients: An inception cohort of 118 patients. Tumor stage was T3 N0 M0 in 90 patients, T3 N1 M0 in 21 patients, T3 N2 M0 in 5 patients, and T3 N3 M0 in 2 patients.
Interventions: All patients underwent supracricoid partial laryngectomy. A platin-based induction chemotherapy regimen was used in 100 patients. Postoperative radiotherapy was used for 24 patients.
Main outcome measures: Local recurrence, nodal recurrence, distant metastasis, and survival; univariate and multivariate analysis of local recurrence.
Results: Nine patients developed a local recurrence. The 1-, 3-, and 5-year actuarial local control estimates were 97.3%, 93.5%, and 91.4%, respectively. In a stepwise regression model, the presence of positive margins of resection was the only variable that statistically increased the risk of local recurrence (P =.008). Local recurrence resulted in a significant increase in nodal recurrence (P<.001) and distant metastasis (P<.001) and a significant decrease in survival (P =.03). An overall 89.8% laryngeal preservation rate and 98.3% local control rate were achieved.
Conclusion: Supracricoid partial laryngectomies should be considered when an organ preservation strategy is discussed in patients with advanced endolaryngeal squamous cell carcinoma classified as T3.