Background: Hypopharyngeal carcinoma is likely to spread to the lymph nodes, but there is no established strategy for management in transoral surgery.
Methods: We compared oncologic and functional outcomes in a retrospective multicenter study of patients who underwent transoral surgery for hypopharyngeal carcinoma between 2015 and 2021.
Results: Two-hundred and thirty-two patients were included. Comparing patients with and without adjuvant radiotherapy, 3-year regional recurrence-free survival (RRFS) was not significantly different in pN2b and pN2c, but was significantly worse in pN3b without adjuvant radiotherapy. In patients without neck dissection, the 3-year RRFS was 85.6%, 76.8%, and 70.0% for T1, T2, and T3 primary lesions, respectively, and was significantly worse for T2 or higher (p = 0.035).
Conclusions: In the absence of extracapsular invasion, regional control did not deteriorate without adjuvant therapy. If prophylactic neck dissection is not performed, careful follow-up is necessary if the primary lesion is T2 or greater.
Keywords: adjuvant therapy; cervical lymph node metastasis; hypopharyngeal cancer; multi-institutional retrospective study; transoral surgery.
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