One hundred and one patients with pyriform sinus carcinoma treated at the Netherlands Cancer Institute were studied retrospectively. The patients were staged according to the UICC criteria of 1987: there were no stage I, 23 stage II, 30 stage III, and 48 stage IV patients. The treatment consisted of radiotherapy (n = 45), a planned combination of surgery and post-operative radiotherapy (n = 47) or surgery alone (n = 9). The crude 5-year survival was 27%, whereas the 5-year disease-free survival was 37%. The locoregional disease-free survival was 52%. Stage according to the UICC 1987 criteria is an important prognostic variable (P = 0.0026). Furthermore, significantly less locoregional recurrences and a better disease-free survival were seen in the combined surgery and radiotherapy group than in the exclusively irradiated group (P < 0.0001).
Adult Aged