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Mucosal melanoma of the head and neck is a rare and aggressive malignancy with poor prognosis even after extensive resection. A 76-year-old male with melanoma of the hard palate underwent CO2 laser resection as a conservative treatment to preserve his quality of life. Six months after lumpectomy the patient was asymptomatic and had no tumor activity. Recurrence is the rule. Local or regional relapse occurs at any time and patients eventually die from distant metastasis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives/Hypothesis: To demonstrate that a group of patients who are not considered candidates for organ preservation can achieve organ preservation through neoadjuvant chemotherapy + surgery and to determine if there are differences regarding organ preservation, disease‐free survival (DFS), overall survival (OS), and cancer‐specific survival (CSS) after comparing such group with another one undergoing standard treatment. Methods: Patients with laryngeal cancer were retrospectively analyzed and divided into two groups. Group A included patients who were initially treated with supracricoid laryngectomy. Group B included patients with T3N0 glottic squamous cell carcinoma with arytenoid fixation. Patients were offered neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Both groups underwent bilateral selective neck dissection of lymph nodes (II–V) and intentional search of the Delphian lymph nodes. Results: Thirty‐four patients were assigned to group A of surgery alone, and 16 patients were included in group B of induction chemotherapy. No statistical differences were found regarding sex, tumor localization, histological diagnosis, TNM staging, recurrence, or organ preservation. DFS, OS, and CSS at 60 months were the same in both groups. No statistical differences were found when comparing induction versus noninduction groups according to the T‐stage in DFS, OS, and CSS. Conclusions: Neoadjuvant chemotherapy allows to perform conservative surgery in patients with poor functional prognosis or who are not good candidates for organ preservation at first. We could perform safe surgery, and there was no more recurrence. Hence DFS is not modified (i.e., there was no more recurrence); consequently, OS and CSS are not affected. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy plus supracricoid partial laryngectomy‐cricohyoidoepiglottopexy is an oncologically safe procedure that preserves basic functions such as breathing, phonation, and swallowing. Level of Evidence: 3 Laryngoscope, 132:156–162, 2022 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mucosal melanoma of the head and neck is a rare and aggressive malignancy with poor prognosis even after extensive resection. A 76-year-old male with melanoma of the hard palate underwent CO 2 laser resection as a conservative treatment to preserve his quality of life. Six months after lumpectomy the patient was asymptomatic and had no tumor activity. Recurrence is the rule. Local or regional relapse occurs at any time and patients eventually die from distant metastasis., Competing Interests: Conflict of InterestNone., (© Association of Otolaryngologists of India 2022. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.)