2000 Volume 12 Issue 2 Pages 90-94
The aim of this article is to determine the impact of age on the radical treatment of locally advanced laryngeal cancer, which often requires a total laryngectomy. A retrospective study was performed on 207 patients with previously untreated T3/T4 laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma between 1984 and 1993. Those patients were divided into the following three groups based on age : group 1 consisted of 95 patients under 65 years of age, group 2 was comprised of 92 patients between the age of 65 and 79, and group 3 included 20 patients older than 79. The rate of radical treatment was 92% in group 1, 92% in group 2, and 65% in group 3. The cause-specific 5-year survival rate was 78% in group 1, 77% in group 2, and 31% in group 3. The median survival period in group 3 was 1.3 years, but all patients except for one were relieved from final agonies, such as dyspnea, pain, bleeding, and dysphagia.
These results suggest that advanced age is not a determining factor when considering radical treatment in the patients aged under 80, and the radical treatment is meaningful in terms of quality of life for the patients 80 years of age and older.
