Surgery with postoperative radiotherapy for pN2 head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

CONCLUSION

Factors that affected prognosis were T stage and extracapsular spread in patients that underwent primary surgery with postoperative radiotherapy for pN2 head and neck carcinoma.

OBJECTIVES

The purpose of this study was to examine treatment outcomes and define prognostic factors for pN2 head and neck carcinoma.

METHODS

A total of 209 patients underwent surgery with postoperative radiotherapy between 1994 and 2011. Primary tumor sites were the oropharynx (n = 70), hypopharynx (n = 48), larynx (n = 47), and oral cavity (n = 44). There were 21, 83, 60, and 45 patients with stage T1 to T4 cancers, respectively. The N stages were 20 N2a, 129 N2b, and 60 N2c.

RESULTS

The recurrence rate was 40% (83/209) over a mean observation period of 39 months. The 5-year disease-free survival (DFS), disease-specific survival (DSS), and overall survival (OS) rates in our cohort were 44%, 60%, and 56%, respectively. The presence of advanced T stage or extracapsular spread had a significant adverse effect on 5-year DFS, DSS, and OS rates according to Kaplan-Meier survival curves. Multivariate Cox regression analysis confirmed the significant association between 5-year DSS rate and advanced T stage (hazard ratio (HR), 2.20; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.26-3.82; p = 0.005) and extracapsular spread (HR, 2.29; 95% CI, 1.24-4.21; p = 0.008).