Carcinoma of the pyriform sinus: a retrospective analysis of treatment results over a 20-year period.

One hundred and one patients with pyriform sinus carcinoma treated at the Netherlands Cancer Institute were studied retrospectively. The patients were staged according to the UICC criteria of 1987: there were no stage I, 23 stage II, 30 stage III, and 48 stage IV patients. The treatment consisted of radiotherapy (n = 45), a planned combination of surgery and post-operative radiotherapy (n = 47) or surgery alone (n = 9). The crude 5-year survival was 27%, whereas the 5-year disease-free survival was 37%. The locoregional disease-free survival was 52%. Stage according to the UICC 1987 criteria is an important prognostic variable (P = 0.0026). Furthermore, significantly less locoregional recurrences and a better disease-free survival were seen in the combined surgery and radiotherapy group than in the exclusively irradiated group (P < 0.0001).