Affiliation:
1. Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai New York New York USA
Abstract
AbstractBackgroundThe impact of evaluating versus not evaluating surgical margins for early‐stage laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC) has not been evaluated.MethodsOverall survival was compared between patients who underwent endoscopic surgery for cT1‐2, N0, M0 LSCC and had surgical margins evaluated versus not evaluated versus unevaluable in the National Cancer Database (2010–2019) using multivariable‐adjusted Cox proportional hazards analyses.Results7597 patients met study eligibility criteria. 4123 (54.3%) patients underwent margin evaluation, 1631 (21.5%) did not undergo margin evaluation, and 1843 (24.3%) had unevaluable margins. Patients undergoing margin evaluation had better overall survival than patients who did not undergo margin evaluation (HR: 0.88, 95% CI: 0.78–1.00, p = 0.044) and patients with unevaluable margins (HR: 0.88, 95% CI: 0.78–0.98, p = 0.021). Patients undergoing margin evaluation received significantly less adjuvant radiation.ConclusionsSurgical margin evaluation is an important prognostic factor for patients receiving endoscopic surgery for early‐stage LSCC and should be conducted whenever possible.