Abstract
The purposes of this study were to investigate what is the most effective therapy for oropharyngeal cancer, how to remove the causes and how to prevent patients from postoperative aspiration. One-hundred and ninety-five patients with oropharyngeal cancer received radical treatment at Kurume University Hospital between 1971 and 2001. They were classified into three therapy groups : radiotherapy group, operation group and operation + radiotherapy group. The 5-year local control rate was 64%, and the cause-specific 5-year survival rate was 58%. The most satisfactory result of 5-year local control rate was the operation + radiotherapy group. However, no significant differences of cause-specific 5-year survival rate were found between these three groups. The worst results of the 5-year local control rate as well as survival rate were found in the posterior wall subsite group. In contrast, satisfactory local control rate was obtained with tongue base resection and supraglottic horizontal partial laryngectomy in the anterior wall subsite group. For the lateral wall subsite group, in case where cancer had inraded the tongue base, the patients received resection of half of the tongue base with lateral wall resection, and the larynx could not be preserved in half of the patients could not preserve larynx. In cases with advanced posterior wall cancer, more extended local resection such as by pharyngo-laryngo-esophagectomy was required. In early posterior wall cancers, surgical procedure via the oral or hyoid bone approach seemed to prevent postoperative aspiration. In cases with superior wall cancer, additional surgical margin with postoperative radiotherapy was required to gain a satisfactory local control rate.
