Effects of Antiacid Therapy on Granuloma after Transoral Type IV-VI Cordectomy in Patients with Early-Stage Glottic Cancer

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether preventive administration of a proton pump inhibitor (PPI) can reduce the occurrence and development of traumatic granuloma (TG) following type IV-VI cordectomy. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed the status of postoperative granulomas in 37 patients who underwent type IV-VI cordectomy due to glottic cancer and determined whether postoperative administration of a PPI had any impact on granuloma formation and development. RESULTS: The percentage and number of patients with granuloma in the PPI treatment group (experimental group) at the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 6th month following surgery were 81.25% (13/16), 25.00% (4/16), 18.75% (3/16), and 0.00% (0/16), respectively. The percentage and number of patients with granuloma in the no-PPI group (control group) were 95.24% (20/21), 71.43% (15/21), 52.38% (11/21), and 14.29% (3/21), respectively. The granuloma percentage of the PPI treatment group was lower than that of the control group at all postoperative time points assessed. The differences were not statistically significant at the 1st month (p = 0.175) but were statistically significant at the 2nd and 3rd months after surgery (p = 0.005, p = 0.037). CONCLUSION: Preventive use of a PPI in patients after type IV-VI cordectomy can shorten the TG recovery duration and may reduce the severity of TG, but it cannot prevent TG from occurring. Our results should be confirmed by prospective randomized controlled trials with large sample sizes.