OBJECTIVETo investigate the characteristic of cervical lymph node metastasis of hypopharyngeal carcinoma and its influence to the prognosis.

METHODSOne hundred and eight hypopharyngeal carcinoma patients who accepted treatments in the 1st Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University from 1985 to 2000 were reviewed retrospectively. All of them accepted surgical treatment without pre-operative chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Stage was made according to the standard of International Union Against Cancer (UICC) in 1992. Specimens of the patients were carefully examined to confirm the primary site of the tumor and the distribution of cervical lymph node metastasis. Pathological differentiations of the tumor were classified into high, middle and low category. Kaplan-Meier method was used to estimate the 3rd, 5th years survival.

RESULTSThe rates of lymph node metastasis of was 45.8% for patients with TI and T2 disease, 79.8% for those with T3 and T4, and 75.0% (81/108)for the whole patients(P < 0.05). Patients with pyriform sinus cancer occupied 92.6% (100/108) of all the cases. Cervical lymph node metastasis rate of pyriform sinus cancer and posterior pharyngeal wall cancer were 74. 0% and 87. 5% respectively (P > 0.05). Cervical lymph node metastasis rate of patients with the high, middle and low differentiation tumor were 72. 2% , 67.6% and 85.7% respectively (P > 0.05). The 3rd and 5th years survival rates of all patients were 67.53% and 29.87% respectively. The occurrence of cervical lymph node metastasis was 76.5% in the level II and III, and 8.6% in the level V and VI. CONCLUSIONS Cervical lymph node metastasis rate of hypopharyngeal carcinoma is high. Cervical lymph node metastasis was one of the most significant prognostic factors of hypopharyngeal carcinoma. With the increase of the cervical node metastasis, the 3rd and 5th years survival of the patients declined gradually.