There has been a growing trend in the surgical management of malignant disease toward thinking in terms of "adequate" rather than "radical." This is based not merely on increased frequency of extensive surgical procedures but on the growing realization that adequacy implies a planned removal of tumor and its potential area of spread, whereas "radical" implies a drastic attack—a last resort.
Surgical management has met encouragement in the more extensive tumors of the larynx and hypopharynx as a result of two major observations resulting from a growing background of experience in both surgical and radiation methods. First, radiation therapy has rendered its best results only where restricted surgery would also render a high cure rate.1,2 Secondly, the marked advances in the adjuvants of surgery have reduced surgical morbidity and mortality to such an extent that the surgical approach to laryngeal carcinoma is limited, not so much by the extent