Laryngeal Granuloma, With Special Reference to Cases in Australia

Three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy for refractory laryngeal granuloma

“…One treatment strategy is to excise the inflammatory focus followed by radiotherapy to prevent reproliferation of the inflammatory tissue. Another option is to use radiotherapy alone; however, a high radiation dose would compromise the delivery of radical radiation to a subsequent malignancy in this region 8,26,27 . Longer follow-up will be needed to assess the possible late side effects of low-dose radiotherapy.…”

“…Early studies by Holinger and Johnston 7 and Davy 8 showed a benefit in patients with laryngeal granulomas treated with radiation. Harari et al 9 in 1991 treated a recurrent laryngeal granuloma by excision followed by external-beam radiotherapy: no further recurrence was observed after 3 years.…”

Excision and low-dose radiotherapy for refractory laryngeal granuloma

“…Reported radiotherapy schedules are varied both in dose and fractionation, although generally low total doses in the region of 10-30 Gy, are used. The experience of radiotherapy in the treatment of laryngeal granuloma is limited (Davy, 1959;Smith et al, 1969;Harari et al, 1991), due to the rarity of the disease and the small number of patients who are truly refractory to conventional therapy. An important consideration in the use of radiotherapy to treat benign conditions of the head and neck, is that this radiation dose would compromise the delivery of a radical dose of radiation to a subsequent malignancy in this region.…”

“…Recurrence rates do not appear to be related to removal by surgical excision or laser (Benjamin and Croxson, 1985). Rarely, a combined approach of surgery and adjuvant radiotherapy has been used (Davy, 1959;Smith et al, 1969;Harari et al, 1991). There is only limited anecdotal experience of this approach because of the rarity of the disease and reluctance to use radiotherapy for benign disease.…”