Abstract
Total laryngectomy (TL) is increasingly performed as a life-saving procedure. The operation after radiotherapy (RT) or chemoradiotherapy (CRT) often heals for a long period of time and may be associated with a higher occurrence of complications, especially pharyngocutaneous fistulas (FP).
The objective of the work was to verify prevalence of FP in life-saving interventions in the authors' own surgery data and to search for other risk factors of their origin. Another subject was to reveal whether prolonged healing influenced prognosis of the disease.
The retrospective study analyzed a cohort of 169 patients who underwent TL in the years 2002-2007. Statistical analysis of the data confirmed that preceding oncological therapy was an independent risk factor of the occurrence of FP (P=0.012).
Surprisingly the strongest factor, influencing the development of fistula was the surgeon himself. The fistula occurred significantly less frequently in patients operated on by experienced surgeons (older than 35 years of age) in comparison with younger surgeons (P=0.006).
Another factor which resulted in a higher occurrence of FP was the age group between 49 and 60 years (P=0.020). The occurrence of fistula did not influence the development of local recurrence (P-0.258) or overall survival (P=0.292).e.