A retrospective study on hypopharyngeal cancer classified as pathological N2c: Comparison by primary site laterality

Abstract

Locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma patients classified as pathological N2c are considered to have great risk of distant metastases. N2c is divided into two groups as follows: the primary site is localized in the ipsilateral side, and the primary site extends to bilateral sides.
We retrospectively analyzed 41 patients with pathological N2c hypopharyngeal cancer treated in our hospital between 2008 and 2016. The distant metastases free 5-year survival rates for them were 40％ and 75％, respectively （p＝0.042）. It is possible that nodal stage N2c patients with the primary site localized in the ipsilateral side have a higher risk of distant metastases than patients with the primary site extending to both bilateral sides beyond the midline.