Epidemiology, risk factors, and overall survival rate of laryngeal cancer in Songklanagarind Hospital.

OBJECTIVE To study epidemiology, risk factors and overall survival rate of patients with laryngeal cancer. MATERIAL AND METHOD A chart review of the patients diagnosed with laryngeal cancer in Songklanagarind Hospital over the past 10 years was performed. RESULTS Two hundred eighty nine patient cases were reviewed, in which 106 patients were diagnosed with supraglottic cancer 180 with glottic cancer and three with subglottic cancer. The majority of the patients was male, active smokers, alcohol consumers and had a histology showing squamous cell carcinoma. Disease characteristics indicated that most cases of supraglottic cancer were in a locally advanced stage (84.4%), whereas most patients with glottic cancer were diagnosed with early stage (61.3%). Hoarseness was the most common presenting symptom. Regarding the complete response rate, glottic cancer was superior to supraglottic cancer. For glottic cancer treatments, surgery alone or primary radiation showed good 5-year overall survival rates with no difference in modality results (87.5% versus 83.2%). In supraglottic cancer treatments and contrary to glottic cancer surgery with postoperative radiation improved the 5-year overall survival rate in comparison with primary radiation alone (52.2% versus 39.2%). CONCLUSION Primary radiation or surgery alone is suitable treatments for early stage laryngeal cancer especially in glottic cancer whereas surgery with postoperative radiation should be the treatment for advanced stage laryngeal cancer.