Study Links Surgery with Better Survival for Patients with Advanced Laryngeal Cancer

A team of researchers has found that those with advanced laryngeal cancer have better chances of survival if they are treated with surgery.

Researchers at the Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, claim that when compared to the nonsurgical chemoradiation, surgery boosts survival among patients of advanced laryngeal cancer.

Laryngeal cancer - also called as the cancer of the larynx - is an uncommon cancer that develops inside the tissue of the larynx. Larynx is also called the voice box, is the part of the body that allows humans to produce sounds and speech. It is estimated that each year 11,000-13,000 cases of laryngeal cancer are diagnosed and squamous cell carcinoma accounts for majority of these tumors.

Before 1991, the standard care for advanced cancer was the total surgical removal of the larynx with post-operative radiation. But of late, chemoradiation has gained popularity as it preserves the larynx.

In this study, the researchers analyzed the survival outcomes for surgical vs. non-surgical treatments in those with advanced laryngeal cancer. They worked on the information retrieved from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database that included 5,394 patients who were diagnosed with stage III or IV laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma between 1992 and 2009.

They noticed that those who underwent surgery had 2 years and 5 years of disease specific survival and 2 years and 5 years of overall survival when compared to those who did not undergo any surgery. Over time, there was a rise in non-surgical treatments. In 1992, there was a 32 percent rise, 45 percent rise in 1998-2003 and 62 percent in 2004-2009.

Those who were diagnosed between 2004 and 2009 had better survival chances when compared to those who were diagnosed earlier. The researchers assume that this difference may be due to the improvements seen in radiation and chemotherapy strategies.

"Patients need to be made aware of the modest but significant survival disadvantage associated with nonsurgical therapy as part of the shared decision-making process during treatment selection," researchers said.

The finding was documented in JAMA Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg.