A retrospective study of 131 cases of carcinoma of the posterior pharyngeal wall.

Between 1958 and 1973, 131 patients with carcinoma of the posterior pharyngeal wall were treated at the Institute Gustave-Roussy (127 men, 4 women, mean age 61 years). Nine had a tumor of the oropharynx, 37 of the hypopharynx and 85 of the oro-hypopharynx. Nine had T1 tumors, 19 T2 and 103 T3 (TNM-UICC 1975). 122 patients were treated by irradiation: 83% were T3 lesions, 81% were more than 4 cm in diameter, 80% were ulcerated and 42% were staged N3. The survival rate of these patients was very poor (3% at five years). The nine patients who had been treated by surgical excision had a better survival rate and three are alive at 5 years, but the initial prognostic factors were better in this group. It seems that the indications for surgery should be widened to increase the survival rate in these poor prognosis cancers.