Comparative analyses of short- and long-term outcomes between endoscopic submucosal dissection and endoscopic laryngo-pharyngeal surgery for superficial pharyngeal carcinomas

Endoscopic treatment of superficial pharyngeal carcinomas includes endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD; usually performed by endoscopists), and endoscopic laryngo-pharyngeal surgery (ELPS; primarily performed by otolaryngologists). Few studies have compared the efficacy of the two techniques in treating superficial pharyngeal carcinomas. In this study, we compared the outcomes of these two techniques to determine the advantages. We retrospectively examined the short- and long-term outcomes of 93 consecutive patients with superficial pharyngeal carcinoma who either underwent an ESD or ELPS between August 2008 and December 2021. There were 35 lesions among 29 patients and 93 lesions among 71 patients in the ESD and ELPS groups, respectively. The ELPS group had a significantly shorter procedure time (121.2 ± 97.4 min vs. 54.7 ± 40.2 min, p