Salvage surgery for hypopharyngeal carcinoma and cervical esophageal carcinoma with local recurrence or residual tumor after chemoradiotherapy

In this study, we present the treatment results of salvage surgery in 34 patients with residual primary tumor or local relapse tumor in the hypopharynx and cervical esophagus after radiotherapy (15 patients) or chemoradiotherapy (19 patients) at the Division of Head and Neck Surgery, National Cancer Center Hospital East between 1997 and 2006. All patients underwent total pharyngolaryngoesophagectomy (TPLE) as salvage surgery. Among these patients, postoperative complication was observed in 11 patients (32.4%). Fisher's exact test revealed no significant difference in postoperative complication rate between the radiotherapy (RT) group and chemoradiotherapy (CRT) group. Tumors in the neck recurred in 10 patients (55.6%) after surgical resection. The tumor recurrence control rate for cervical lymph nodes was 84.7% for patients with clinically N0 disease after CRT who had not undergone neck dissection. The median survival time was 392 days. We consider that salvage surgery can he safely performed by considering the necessity and method of operation, and the outcome of patients receiving CRT would he improved by salvage surgery. (author)