Supracricoid Partial Laryngectomy: The Second Coming

Abstract

Early cancer of the larynx can be addressed by single modality treatment (surgery or radiotherapy) while advanced cancer larynx is addressed with multimodality treatment—surgery (total laryngectomy) + postoperative RT or concurrent chemotherapy + radiotherapy. But there is a subset of population with carcinoma larynx in whom single modality treatment with radiotherapy or conventional partial laryngectomy may not be sufficient while total laryngectomy with postoperative radiotherapy may be overkill. In this subset of population supracricoid partial laryngectomy is the perfect answer which bridges the gap between partial laryngectomy and total laryngectomy. In addition to utilizing this procedure in the post-RT residual disease scenario the upfront performance of SCPL can also avoid adjuvant RT in many instances. Supracricoid partial laryngectomy is an organ preservation procedure in the true sense that it can achieve an oncological safe margin and also provide a high quality of life.