[The impact of extracapsular spread and desmoplasia on local recurrence in patients with malignant tumors of the larynx and hypopharynx].

A study was made of the impact of the presence of extracapsular spread (ECS) and desmoplastic pattern (DP) in cervical lymph nodes on local recurrence in 119 patients with laryngeal and hypopharyngeal cancer. All patients underwent surgery between 1984 and 1992 for squamous-cell carcinoma and had histologically confirmed lymph node metastasis. The tumor recurred locally in 15.7% of patients without ECS and in 36.1% of patients with ECS (p < 0.03). The frequency of local recurrence did not differ significantly between patients without DP (20.0%) and patients with DP (29.0%) (p > 0.05). Therefore ECS in cervical lymph nodes of patients with laryngeal cancer was related with an increased rate of local recurrence, but DP did not modify the probability of local recurrence.