Purpose The main objective of this study was to evaluate the 5-year efficacy of exclusive laryngeal radiotherapy without node prophylactic irradiation for localized cancers of the vocal cords. Patients and methods We retrospectively reviewed charts from 258 patients with T1-T2N0 glottic carcinoma irradiated from April 1987 to March 2015 in four France western centers, including pretreated patients. Toxicity was analyzed according to CTCAE v4.0 classification. Results The median follow-up was 50 months. The median age was 67 years with 87% men and 85.5% had T1 tumor. Five years overall survival was 77.5% (95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 71.4–83.5), 5 years local control was 86.8% (95% CI: 82.3–91.3), specific survival rate was 95% (95% CI: 92.2–97.9) and final laryngectomy-free survival was 87.5% (95% CI: 82.2–92.9). Most toxicities were grade 1 and 2. Grade 3 acute toxicity was 15.5% for the radiation laryngitis, 3.5% for radiodermatitis and 7.7% for dysphonia. Grade 3 chronic toxicity was 3.5% for dysphonia and there were two cases of tracheal stenosis treated by tracheotomy. Conclusion Radiotherapy provides good results in local control of stage I and II vocal cords cancers as well as the toxicity level.
