Treatment Results and Voice Analysis after Laser Cordectomy for Glottic T1 Cancer

Lee, Hwan Ho; Lee, Kang Dae; Lee, Han Kook; Pyo, Kyung Bo; Ahn, Kyung Mo; Lee, Young Soo

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: For the treatment of glottic T1 cancer, several methods such as laser cordectomy, conservative laryngeal surgery and radiation therapy are possible. This study was performed to investigate the utility of laser cordectomy in the oncological and phonetic aspects. MATERIALS AND METHOD: Eighteen patients with glottic T1 cancer, who had undergone laser cordectomy at Kosin Medical Center from March, 1997 to July, 2001, were retrospectively investigated. The method of the operation was classified according to European Laryngological Society Classification. We analysed intraoperative complication, the duration of admission, postoperative complication, and tumor recurrence. Twelve patients were phonetically analysed using MATLAB and have undergone perceptual analysis. Videostroboscopy was performed for every patient to analyze the mechanism of phonation. As a control group, six normal persons were used.
RESULTS
Intraoperative complications were not found in any of the 18 patients, but 5 patients who had suspicious lesions during following up after operation, have undergone biopsy which gave negative results. Among 4 patients who had granulation tissues, 2 patients were spontaneously regressed, and the other 2 patients have undergone removal of tissue with no recurrences. The vocal parameters such as Fo, S.D.Fo, jitter, shimmer and NHR differed significantly between the surgery group and the control group. The parameters maximum phonation time, speech rate and speech intelligiblity did not differ between two groups.
CONCLUSION
Laser cordectomy for glottic T1 cancer provides time-and cost-effectiveness, a low level of morbidity, excellent local control rate, and acceptable voice quality.