Prognostic role of pneumonia in supracricoid and supraglottic laryngectomies

The goal of this study was to identify host and tumour factors associated with postoperative pneumonia (PP) in a selected population of laryngeal cancer patients, treated by partial laryngectomy in 20 years at our Institution and to assess its potential prognostic impact.

Clinical records of 416 consecutive patients were retrospectively reviewed. Tobacco consumption, body mass index (BMI), previous pulmonary disease, age, sex, preoperative blood gas analysis values, tumour stage and type of surgery were tested as potential risk factors for PP. Finally, the prognostic impact of these variables, including PP, in terms of disease-free and actuarial survival by Kaplan–Meier and Cox analyses were evaluated.

PP developed in 73 patients (16.8%). We identified two groups of patients: 26 patients experienced an early PP within the first 7–9 days after surgery, whilst 44 experienced an ab ingestis PP following attempts of oral food intake restoration, three patients died for PP related sepsis.

At multivariate Cox analysis, age older than 60 years and BMI greater than 30 were statistically associated with early PP; whereas male gender and laryngectomy with neck dissection were statistically related to a higher risk of ab ingestis PP.

Interestingly, the occurrence of early PP was a negative independent prognostic factor for 5-years disease-free and actuarial survival (p=0.049 and p=0.001, respectively).

The occurrence of early-onset pneumonia in laryngeal cancer patients selected for conservative laryngectomies is predictable and associated with poor clinical outcome.