The impact of surgical margin status on the outcomes of locally advanced hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma treated by primary surgery

The extent of surgical safety margin remained unclear in hypopharyngeal carcinoma surgery.The purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of surgical margin status on the outcomes of patients with advanced hypopharyngeal carcinoma.A retrospective analysis of clinical data was performed in 205 patients with stage III/IV hypopharyngeal carcinoma treated by primary surgery between January 2005 and December 2014. There were 129 patients with clear surgical margins (≥5 mm) and 76 with close surgical margins (5 mm). The clinical characteristics and treatment outcomes were compared between the two groups.Close surgical margin (cSM) was found to be a significant risk factor for local recurrence, overall survival (OS) and disease-specific survival (DSS). Analysis by stratification according to pT classification showed that the OS and DSS rates of T1/T2 tumors with clear surgical margins (nSM) were significantly higher than those with cSM (p .05), while there was no significant difference in the OS and DSS rates between T3/T4 tumors with cSM and nSM (p .05).The tailored extent of surgical resection margin was recommended for locally advanced hypopharyngeal carcinomas according to primary tumor stage.