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Kerstin M. Stenson, MD; Ellen MacCracken, MS; Marcy List, PhD; Daniel J. Haraf, MD; Bruce Brockstein, MD; Ralph Weichselbaum, MD; Everett E. Vokes, MD

Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2000;126:371-377.

Objective  To define the site-specific swallowing dysfunctions of patients with head and neck cancer with respect to tumor site and stage by videofluoroscopic oropharyngeal motility (OPM) study prior to initiation of treatment.

Design  Retrospective survey.

Setting  Academic university institution.

Patients  A consecutive sample of 79 patients with stage III or IV head and neck cancer without prior treatment or tracheotomy. Patients were divided into groups according to tumor site: oral cavity (n=7), oropharynx (n=27), larynx (n=24), and hypopharynx (n=10). Patients with sinonasal, nasopharyngeal, and unknown primary carcinomas served as the comparison group (n=11).

Intervention  All patients underwent OPM study prior to treatment.

Main Outcome Measures  Parameters of swallowing function, including oral impairment, pharyngeal impairment, cervical esophageal impairment, aspiration, and Swallowing Performance Status Scale (SPSS) score (a global measure of swallowing function) were extracted from the pretreatment OPM study and analyzed with reference to tumor site, T stage, and overall stage. The relations between tumor site and area or degree of dysfunction, and between stage of disease and area or degree of dysfunction were analyzed using ² and Fisher exact tests.

Results  Aspiration status, cervical esophageal impairment, and pharyngeal impairment examined as a function of disease site showed statistically significant differences between groups, with laryngeal and hypopharyngeal sites revealing the most severe dysfunctions. The SPSS score did not correlate with tumor site, T stage, or overall stage. Other OPM parameters analyzed as a function of T stage and overall stage revealed no consistent patterns.

Conclusions  Hypopharyngeal and laryngeal disease sites have a high degree of pretreatment functional impairment. The SPSS score is a good global measure of swallowing dysfunction. In addition, significant site-specific dysfunctions are found when the OPM study is analyzed via its separate parameters. It is therefore critical that posttreatment function is compared with baseline pretreatment dysfunction.

From the Department of Surgery, Section of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery (Dr Stenson and Ms MacCracken), Speech/Swallowing Pathology (Ms MacCracken), Department of Medicine, Control/Community Research (Dr List), Department of Radiation Oncology and Biophysics (Drs Haraf and Weichselbaum), Department of Medicine, Section of Hematology/Oncology (Drs Brockstein and Vokes), University of Chicago Cancer Research Center (Drs Stenson, List, Haraf, Brockstein, Weichselbaum, and Vokes), University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.

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