Methods of radiotherapy after recurrence of laryngeal cancer

With the advancement of radiotherapy technology and equipment, radiotherapy has become one of the main treatments for laryngeal cancer. For some early-stage patients, surgery is not necessary and the cure can be achieved through radiotherapy alone. So what are the specific methods of radiotherapy?

Laryngeal resection greatly reduces the patient's quality of life

The larynx is part of the human respiratory tract and is also a vocal organ. It is connected to the oropharynx above and the trachea below. Total laryngectomy has been widely used in the treatment of laryngeal cancer. Its advantage is that the cancerous tissue is removed relatively thoroughly and the chance of local recurrence is relatively small. The disadvantage is that the patient will lose the vocal function for life and cannot have a normal physiological respiratory channel. Therefore, in recent years, the medical community has paid more and more attention to preserving the function of the larynx while removing the tumor. During surgery, only the tumor is removed, and the structure of the larynx is preserved as much as possible to preserve its vocal function. So what if the tumor is not completely removed? Postoperative radiotherapy can make up for the shortcomings of surgery. Surgery plus radiotherapy has become the main treatment option for laryngeal cancer. A large number of practices have shown that the 5-year survival rate of radiotherapy after hemi- or partial laryngectomy is not inferior to that of total laryngectomy.

Laryngeal cancer is more sensitive to radiation

For some early-stage laryngeal cancer patients, doctors prefer to preserve the larynx and treat them with simple radiotherapy. This is because laryngeal cancer is mostly squamous cell carcinoma, which is generally more sensitive to radiation. In addition, studies have shown that for early-stage laryngeal cancer, especially laryngeal cancer without cervical lymph node metastasis, the long-term survival rate of patients treated with simple radiotherapy is equivalent to that of surgery. Even if radiotherapy fails, the patient still has an 80% success rate if he or she undergoes salvage surgery.

More importantly, radiotherapy alone can better protect the patient's speech function and maximize the patient's quality of life. However, for patients with advanced laryngeal cancer, if surgical resection is possible, it is better to use radiotherapy as an auxiliary treatment measure.

Whether laryngeal cancer is sensitive to radiation depends on many factors. For example, patients with shallow ulcers or ulcers on the surface of the tumor are moderately sensitive, while patients with invasive tumors without ulcers are less sensitive to radiotherapy.

In terms of the location of the tumor, cancer limited to the vocal cords is less likely to metastasize to the lymph nodes and has the greatest chance of being cured by radiotherapy.