Monday, February 14, 2005

Q6: Mass around tracheostomy



This 60yr old gentleman had his larynx removed for laryngeal cancer. 6 months later, this swelling has appeared in close proximity to the tracheal stoma.

What is this condition known as?

What predisposes to this occurence?

What are treatment options for him?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is it a pharyngocutaneous fistula?

Anonymous said...

Pharyngocutaneous fistula

Predisposing factors: poor nutritional status, previous radiation, positive surgical margins, concurrent medical disease

Anonymous said...

i think its a recurrance of laryngeal cancer
predisposing factors: previous radiation, fistula formation
treatment options: neck dissection

Yoke-Yeow Yap said...

Thank you for your answers.

This is a STOMAL RECURRENCE - a recurrence of laryngeal cancer at and around the site of the tracheal-stoma.

Treatment options are surgical resection with reconstruction or radiotherapy.

Anonymous said...

One pre-disposing factor is inadequate margin of surgical excision during initial total laryngectomy. Some people claim that prior tracheostomy is another pre-disposing factor but there is low Level 3 evidence in the literature to suggest that emergency laryngectomy is not better than emergency tracheostomy and semi-elective surgery later on. Stomal recurrence is a bad news, people try to assess resectability by its lower extension into the stoma but sensible doctor should look for palliative treatment.
Sorry My. Yap, I hope you don't mind me commenting, this is good fun.