Local recurrence and metachronous multiple cancers after transoral nonrobotic surgery for pharyngeal and laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma: A retrospective multicenter study

Abstract

Background: Late laryngopharyngeal cancers after transoral surgery include not only local recurrences but also metachronous multiple cancers.

Methods: We compared clinical information, surgical outcomes, and late laryngopharyngeal cancers in patients who underwent transoral nonrobotic surgery for laryngopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma without lymph node metastases between 2015 and 2021 in a multicenter retrospective study.

Results: Four hundred and fifty-seven patients were included. Positive surgical margins were found in 121 patients (26.5%). Twenty-two patients (4.8%) received additional treatment. Positive horizontal margins of invasive carcinoma (p = 0.003) and positive horizontal margins of carcinoma in situ only (p = 0.032) were independent risk factors for local recurrence, and prior radiotherapy (p = 0.001) for metachronous multiple cancers. Local control was significantly worse without additional treatment (p = 0.049), but there was no significant difference in survival.

Conclusions: Patients with positive margins had an increased frequency of local recurrence, but salvage therapy was effective.

Keywords: local recurrence; metachronous multiple cancers; multi-institutional retrospective study; nonrobotic surgery; transoral surgery.