Possibility of Long Term Survival in Hypopharyngeal Carcinoma

Hypopharyngeal carcinoma is notorious for being aggressive and early involvement of cervical lymph nodes. For T1 and T2 diseases surgery and primary radiation therapy may be considered. A more preferred mode of treatment is combined chemoradiation. Despite all these aggressive management approaches, cure rates are poor and risk of early recurrence is high. In this case a female presented with stage I disease in 2007and was successfully treated with combined chemoradiation while nutrition was maintained by gastrostomy for initial eighteen months. After being treated this patient remained disease free for approximately nine years. Now she presented again with T4 N2 hypopharyngeal carcinoma. This case report demonstrates possibility of long term survival with appropriate treatment even in these aggressive and generally difficult to manage cancers. Squamous cell carcinomas in these areas cause field dysplasia, therefore this report also illustrates that this probably is a second cancer in an unstable epithelium.