Percutaneous laryngeal elevation technique to achieve excellent hypopharyngeal exposure in transoral surgery

Endoscopic laryngopharyngeal surgery (ELPS) is a transoral surgery performed for the treatment of early-stage pharyngeal and supralaryngeal cancer. In Japan, ELPS is often chosen for transoral resection of hypopharyngeal cancer. However, in cases of trismus, exposing the hypopharynx even with ELPS using a curved laryngoscope may not be possible. Thus, we developed the percutaneous laryngeal elevation technique (PLET). The PLET is easy to perform because it only requires the addition of a percutaneous suture on the larynx and lifting the larynx ventrally. The PLET could dramatically improve hypopharynx exposure and allow us to perform ELPS on a patient with hypopharyngeal cancer experiencing severe trismus. A 64-year-old man was referred to our hospital for the treatment of hypopharyngeal cancer (cTisN0M0). He had severe trismus because of past surgery and radiotherapy for buccal mucosa cancer. Mouth-opening surgery was performed initially, followed by ELPS. However, the hypopharynx was insufficiently exposed, and the entire tumor could not be visualized. The PLET was performed, which dramatically improved the exposure and allowed us to resect the tumor with sufficient surgical margin. In this case, no intra- and postoperative PLET-related complications were observed. Thus, the PLET is an easy and safe technique for improving hypopharyngeal exposure.