Role of the neck dissection in early-stage lower lip cancers.

Background: In early-stage lip cancer, spread to cervical lymph nodes is extremely rare. Elective neck treatment options include suprahyoid or supraomohyoid neck dissection, sentinel lymph node biopsy, or close follow-up. Aim: In this study, our aim was to investigate the effect of elective surgery on survival in patients operated for early-stage lip cancer. Methods: Patients who underwent surgical treatment for lower lip squamous cell carcinoma between 2005 and 2020 were retrospectively analyzed. Age, gender, neck dissection status (yes/no), clinical and pathological T stage of the tumor, grade, and perineural invasion were recorded and 3-year and 5-year overall (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) rates were estimated. Results: Thirty patients were included: 20 patients had pT1 and 10 patients had pT2 tumors. Neck dissection was performed in 13 patients. The 5-year OS rate was 90.9% and 87.8% with and without dissection, respectively. Neck dissection did not appear to affect OS (P = 0.534) in these patients. The 5-year DFS rate was 96.4% in the overall group, while it was 91.7% and 100% in patients who did or did not undergo neck dissection, respectively (P = 0.756). Discussion: Patients with or without neck dissection did not differ significantly in terms of OS and DFS. Watchful waiting with regular ultrasound imaging of the neck in patients with T1 and T2 lip tumors may be an appropriate therapeutic option.

Correlation between clinical findings and eosinophil/neutrophil ratio in patients with nasal polyps.

Chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps (CRSwNP) is a frequent disease which can be classified as eosinophilic or neutrophilic based on dominant inflammatory cell type at tissue. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical relevance of classifying nasal polyps as eosinophilic or neutrophilic on treatment outcomes. The study was conducted with 40 patients who underwent either surgical or medical treatment with the diagnosis of CRSwNP. The patients were classified into two groups for further assessment up to eosinophil intensity at polyp tissue. All patients were examined by nasal endoscopy and paranasal computed tomography (CT). Before treatment, subjective symptom score, nasal endoscopy score, and CT score were measured. Subsequently, they were reevaluated by similar diagnostic tests after either medical or surgical treatment at sixth month. The preoperative subjective symptom score, endoscopy score, and paranasal CT score were compared between chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) with eosinophilic nasal polyps (E-NP) (CRSwE-NP) group and CRS with neutrophilic nasal polyps group and there was no difference between the two groups (p = 0.369, p = 0.310 and p = 0.494 respectively). Although after treatment in both groups symptom score and endoscopy score were significantly improved but not the CT score, we found no difference in between the groups at sixth month. In most of the previous studies, patients with CRSwE-NP were assumed to have poor prognosis and high recurrence rate despite surgical or medical treatment. However, we did not find any association between eosinophilic or neutrophilic nature of nasal polyp tissue and disease severity.

Management of patients with coexisting obstructive sleep apnea and laryngopharyngeal reflux disease.

Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) and Laryngopharyngeal reflux disease (LPR) are both common health problems causing severe morbidity. Since they have similar risk factors, the prevalence of LPR among patients with OSAS is higher compared with general population. However, there exist only a few studies showing the potential causal relation between LPR and OSAS. The aim of this study was to evaluate the coexistence between OSAS and LPR and to determine whether the therapy of OSAS alters LPR parameters and vice versa. In this study, 44 patients underwent double probed 24 h pH monitoring simultaneously with polysomnography due to the complaints of obstructive sleep apnea and reflux. Twenty of those 44 patients were diagnosed with both OSAS and LPR. Among those patients, 10 patients with mild to moderate OSAS were given only LPR treatment for 3 months. The remaining 10 patients who had severe OSAS underwent CPAP treatment for 3 months. After the end of treatment, all patients were reevaluated with double probed 24 h pH monitoring simultaneously with PSG. Moreover, the patients were evaluated subjectively by Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), snoring Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), Reflux Symptom Index (RSI), and Reflux Finding Score (RFS). The results of this study revealed that OSAS and LPR coexist frequently. LPR treatment did not improve the polysomnographic parameters, but significantly reduced ESS and snoring VAS (p = 0.02 and p = 0.007, respectively). Although the CPAP treatment significantly improved subjective parameters of reflux, such as RSI and RFS (p = 0.016 for both), there was no significant improvement in objective parameters of 24-h pH monitoring. We concluded that since there is a high frequency of coexistence between LPR and OSAS, all patients with OSAS should also be queried for LPR symptoms. In addition, more in-depth and comprehensive research is required to elucidate the association between OSAS and LPR.