Salvage surgery after radiotherapy for oropharyngeal cancer. Treatment complications and oncological results

Abstract

The results of this study confirm the high local complication rate of salvage surgery for oropharyngeal cancer and the poor overall survival.

Salvage surgery for oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinomas: A retrospective study from 2005 to 2013

“…The median duration of survival was 42.8 months for T1‐T2 and 9.1 months for T3‐T4 ( P = .0039). These results can also be found in the literature, with overall 5‐year survival rates for stages I‐II of 36%‐43.6% versus 11%‐29.1%, respectively …”

“…Negative predictive factors seemed to be tumors that were initially at stage IV and when the local recurrences were associated with regional recurrences. In other studies, other factors stood out, such as the lymph node status at the time of the recurrence or the time interval between the end of radiotherapy and the recurrence …”

Carotid blowout in patients with head and neck cancer: Associated factors and treatment outcomes

“…Infection was proposed to be one of the risk factors for developing carotid blowout in patients with head and neck cancer . Bacterial infections could also induce vasa vasorum thrombosis and arterial wall injury.…”

“…Carotid blowout develops when a damaged arterial wall cannot sustain its integrity against the patient's blood pressure . Previous reports found that incidences of carotid blowout in patients who underwent surgical procedures involving head and neck cancers ranged from 2.9% to 4.3% . In those receiving reirradiation because of recurrent head and neck cancers, the incidences of carotid blowout varied from 2.6% to 10% .…”

The Role of Neck Dissection after Radical Chemoradiation for Locally Advanced Head and Neck Cancer: Should We Move Back?

“…On the one hand is the risk of neck recurrences or microscopic residual disease, on the other hand is the probability of an overtreatment with possible surgical complications (lymphedema, dysphagia, fistulae) [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72]. Benefits may include local regional control and OS [6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,…”