Current role of radiotherapy in the treatment of locally advanced laryngeal carcinomas

Background and Objectives: During the past few years, radiotherapy (RT) has been increasingly used in combination with surgery in the treatment of loc ally advanced laryngeal carcinomas to improve survival rates in patients wi th more extensive tumors. Methods: This is a retrospective study of a large series of stage III and I V laryngeal carcinomas, and postoperative RT was indicated for some of thes e cases. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 380 patients wi th stage III and IV tumors, of which 163 (43%) underwent surgery only and 2 17 (57%) received surgery and postoperative RT. Results: The survival rates of patients who underwent surgery and RT were c omparable to those of patients who underwent surgery only, but the former g roup was composed of subjects suffering from negative prognostic factors. Conclusions: The indications for combined treatment should be correlated wi th the prognostic factors to increase the survival rate of patients with st age III and IV laryngeal carcinoma. (C) 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.