The nonsurgical management of early stage (T1/2 N0 M0) laryngeal cancer: A population analysis

Background. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the patterns of care and survival in the nonsurgical management of early-stage (T1/2 N0 M0) laryngeal cancer. Study Design. This was a retrospective cohort study using data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database during the period 2004 to 2015. Patients diagnosed with T1/2 N0 M0 laryngeal SCC definitively treated without surgery were included. Study predictors were age, gender, race, marital status, histologic grade, stage, and management strategy defined as radiotherapy (RT), chemotherapy, chemoradiotherapy (CRT), or no treatment. Study outcomes were overall survival (OS) and disease-specific survival (DSS). Results. In total, 3221 patients comprised the final sample. Over half of the lesions were stage I (63.8%); 74.0%, 24.8%, and 1.2% were located in the glottis, supraglottis, and subglottis, respectively. RT (77.6%) was the preferred nonsurgical treatment modality, followed by CRT (12.7%). A greater proportion of patients with stage II disease (25.1%) received CRT compared with those with stage I (5.6%). Similarly, patients receiving CRT were significantly younger and more likely to present with higher-grade lesions located in the supraglottis and subglottis. In the multivariate model, the risks of both disease-specific and overall death were increased by age, male gender, supraglottic and subglottic location, stage II disease, CRT, and no treatment. Conclusions. Definitive RT was the preferred treatment modality regardless of tumor characteristics. CRT was more often selectively reserved for younger patients with higher grade, stage II tumors located in the supraglottis and subglottis. This approach may be driven by the poorer rates of survival associated with these particular characteristics. CRT did not appear to improve survival in comparison with RT after controlling for subsite and disease severity; however, future clinical studies are required to validate this finding.