Carcinoma of the vocal cord. Results after subperichondral cordectomy

The clinical outcome of 110 patients operated upon by subperichondral cordectomy between 1982 and 1992 for T1s/T1a, NO, MO carcinomas of the vocal cord has been evaluated in this longitudinal epidemiological study. Patients have been followed up until the end of 1993 by examinations done once a month (first year), every three months (years 2 to 4), every six months (years 5 to 8), and then once a year. Life-tables have been computed according to Kaplan and Meier and raw survival has been 90.0%. Considering only the mortality due to any type of neoplastic disease, the survival reached 93.6%. Finally, considering only deaths due to recurrences or metastases of the primary tumor, the survival rate was 95.5%. Mortality after the first recurrence was 27.3%, after a second recurrence 50.0%. A correlation between number of cigarettes smoked and the risk of recurrence of the tumor could be observed (p < 0.01), while gross appearance and histologic grading of the vocal cord carcinoma proved to be uncorrelated with the risk of recurrences.