Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2023 Feb 3;12(3):1237.
doi: 10.3390/jcm12031237.

Current Therapeutic Strategies for Patients with Hypopharyngeal Carcinoma: Oncologic and Functional Outcomes

Alexandre Bozec  1 , Gilles Poissonnet  1 , Olivier Dassonville  1 , Dorian Culié  1
Affiliations
Review

Current Therapeutic Strategies for Patients with Hypopharyngeal Carcinoma: Oncologic and Functional Outcomes

Alexandre Bozec et al. J Clin Med. .

Abstract

Hypopharyngeal cancer is usually diagnosed at an advanced stage and is associated with a high risk of recurrence and poor survival rates. Although they differ greatly in terms of prognosis, hypopharyngeal cancers are usually treated together with laryngeal cancers in clinical trials. Therefore, there are very few studies that focus specifically on patients with hypopharyngeal carcinoma. As a result, the therapeutic management of these patients is highly debated, and their clinical outcomes are poorly reported. The aim of this review is therefore to discuss the current therapeutic options in patients with hypopharyngeal carcinoma and their oncologic and functional outcomes. Patients with early-stage tumors can be treated either by conservative surgery (including transoral robot-assisted surgery) or by RT alone. However, most patients are diagnosed with locally advanced tumors that cannot be treated surgically without total laryngectomy. In this situation, the critical issue is to select the patients eligible for a larynx preservation therapeutic program. However, radical surgery with total laryngectomy still plays an important role in the management of patients with hypopharyngeal carcinoma, either as the primary treatment modality (T4 resectable primary tumor, contraindication to larynx preservation therapies) or, more commonly, as salvage treatment.

Keywords: functional outcomes; hypopharynx; larynx preservation; squamous cell carcinoma; survival; total laryngectomy.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Therapeutic management of patients with nonmetastatic resectable hypopharyngeal carcinoma (HC). CT: computed tomography; PET: positron emission tomography; S: surgery; ND: neck dissection; RT: radiation therapy; CRT: chemoradiation therapy; ICT: induction chemotherapy; TL: total laryngectomy.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Induction chemotherapy (ICT)-based larynx preservation (LP) program for a 62-year-old female patient with a T3N0 hypopharyngeal carcinoma: (a) initial CT scan of the tumor; (b) initial nasofibroscopy showing a T3 tumor invading the left pyriform sinus, and the aryepiglottic fold; (c) post-ICT CT scan showing a near-complete response to ICT (2 cycles of TPF: docetaxel, cisplatin and 5-fluorouracil); (d) post-ICT nasofibroscopy showing a near-complete response to ICT with larynx mobility recovery.
Figure 3
Figure 3
CT scan of a 67-year-old male patient with a T4aN0 hypopharyngeal carcinoma.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Global Burden of Disease Cancer Collaboration Global, regional, and national cancer incidence, mortality, years of life lost, years lived with disability, and disability-adjusted life-years for 29 Cancer Groups, 1990 to 2017: A systematic analysis for the global burden of disease study. JAMA Oncol. 2019;5:1749–1768. doi: 10.1001/jamaoncol.2019.2996. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Aupérin A. Epidemiology of head and neck cancers: An update. Curr. Opin. Oncol. 2020;32:178–186. doi: 10.1097/CCO.0000000000000629. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Habib A. Management of advanced hypopharyngeal carcinoma: Systematic review of survival following surgical and non-surgical treatments. J. Laryngol. Otol. 2018;132:385–400. doi: 10.1017/S0022215118000555. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Thakur K., Singh C.A., Thakar A., Kakkar A., Sikka K., Kumar R., Sharma S.C. Prevalence of synchronous ESCN in head and neck cancer: A single-institution perspective. Laryngoscope. 2021;131:E807–E814. doi: 10.1002/lary.28821. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Tseng C.M., Wang H.H., Le C.T., Tai C.M., Tseng C.H., Chen C.C., Tsai Y.N., Chen T.H., Hsu M.H., Wang C.C., et al. A nationwide population-based study to access the risk of metachronous esophageal cancers in head and neck cancer survivors. Sci. Rep. 2020;10:884. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-57630-6. - DOI - PMC - PubMed