Background: Laryngeal carcinoma is one of the most common malignant tumors of the head and neck. Researchers have refined the study of surgical margin in the anatomical subarea of the larynx to determine the most appropriate distance of the surgical margin for laryngeal carcinoma, to achieve accurate resection of laryngeal carcinoma and to improve the possibility of retention of laryngeal function.
Methods: A comprehensive review of the primary literature was performed from 2009 to 2019 utilizing keywords laryngeal carcinoma, surgical margin, molecular margin, and prognostic factor. Articles were included at the discretion of the authors based on novel and/or contributions to the literature.
Results: The prognosis of laryngeal carcinoma significantly correlates with the status of surgical margins. Patients with positive surgical margins have higher recurrence and metastasis rates and worse prognosis. Patients with negative pathological surgical margin but with the expression or altered expression levels of one or more tumor-related molecular biomarkers had high rates of recurrence and metastasis, and poor prognosis.
Conclusions: Clinical intervention can improve the prognosis of patients with positive surgical margins. Patients with close margins should be followed closely. Among patients with negative surgical margins, patients with abnormal molecular margin results should be closely followed up. However, the specific selection of one or several molecular biomarkers as the detection index of molecular margin currently requires multicenter prospective or retrospective large sample study as guidance.
Keywords: laryngeal carcinoma; molecular margin; prognosis; surgical margin.