Current concepts and new horizons in conservation laryngeal surgery: An important part of multidisciplinary care

Background. New surgical techniques in conservation laryngeal surgery (CLS) have emerged over the past 20 years and now offer a viable "organ- preservation" approach for patients with laryngeal cancer. We review traditional and new CLS procedures and summarize the functional and oncologic outcomes of CLS in both primary and salvage settings. Methods. We searched the literature by accessing Medline for articles from 1991 to 2007 on primary or salvage surgery (open and transoral) for laryngeal neoplasms. Conclusion. Our review of the literature suggests that proper selection of patients for CLS can yield long-term local control rates equal to or better than those obtained using radiation-based approaches. We believe that CLS should be directly compared with radiation or chemoradiation to further refine the indications for each kind of treatment in cases of primary and recurrent/refractory laryngeal cancer.

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