Abstract
Thirty-six patients who underwent vertical partial laryngectomy at National Cancer Center Hospital East between July, 1992 and December, 1995 were evaluated. Thirty-four had f ronto-lateral resections and two anterior frontal resections. Twenty-two patients received vertical partial laryngectomies as an initial treatment for laryngeal carcinoma. Thirteen were radiation failure cases and one patient had local recurrence after partial laryngectomy. Wound complications were found in eight patients in the initially treated group. Surgical management, excision of granuloma, was needed in only one patient. Significant complications, such as postoperative necrosis of the thyroid cartilage, developed in five salvage cases, two of whom required total laryngectomy because of subsequent misdeglutition. Median time to recover oral intake was 11.8 days in patients who received the operation initially and that was 15.9 days in recurrent cases. Once wound healing was achieved, no patients required total laryngectomy only for swallowing insufficiency. Although clinical course of postoperative wound healing of recurrent cases is very often eventful and resumption of oral intake is sometimes delayed, vertical partial laryngectomy is appraised as an useful salvage procedure, because most of recurrent cases can obtain their wound healing after vertical partial laryngectomy without any more operations.
