Clinical Outcome of Definitive Radiotherapy and/or Surgery in T1-2N0M0 Glottic Squamous Cell Carcinoma: A Single Institution Retrospective Report

Abstract

Background: The current treatment options of early glottic carcinoma are radiotherapy; trans laser microsurgery, and open surgery. However, the best treatment is still controversial due to lack of randomized controlled trials. We aimed to evaluate the treatment results and the prognostic factors of local control of early glottic squamous cell carcinoma patients (GSCC) T1-2N0M0 treated at our institution. Material and Methods: We retrospectively studied the charts of 52 patients with early GSCC T1-T2N0M0 from 2010-2015 at the Clinical Oncology Department, Ain-Shams University. 24 patients had T1 and 28 had T2 early glottic carcinoma. The overall survival OS, local control rate, and laryngeal preservation rate were evaluated. Kaplan-Meier method, Cox proportional hazards model were used to analyze the data. Results: Median duration of follow-up was 13 months. Thirty-eight patients received radiation treatment alone (73.1%), 7.7% of the patients underwent surgery alone, and 19.2% of the patients had surgery combined with radiotherapy. Local recurrence after radiation failure developed in 6/52 patients, all had T2 disease and were salvaged by total laryngectomy. The ultimate local control rate was 88.5%, and the ultimate laryngeal preservation rate was 77.2% (40/52 patients). The median OS of the 52 patients was 13 months (range 2 - 46 months). Univariate analysis of factors associated with poor local control showed that age > 60 years was the only significant factor (P = 0.048). Conclusion: Radiotherapy achieves high local control and laryngeal preservation rates for patients with early glottic carcinoma, and is associated with a low rate of severe complications compared to surgery. Salvage surgery is feasible after radiotherapy failure.