Treatment of recurrent respiratory papillomatosis with microsurgery in combination with intralesional cidofovir—a prospective study

Recurrent respiratory papillomatosis (RRP) is an uncommon disease that may cause symptoms ranging from hoarseness to severe obstruction of the airway. Several treatment modalities have been tried, all with varying success. The goal of this study is to assess the benefit of the intralesional injection of cidofovir as an adjunct to microsurgical excision in treatment of laryngeal papillomatosis. All patients with RRP who presented between 1999 and 2004 at the University Medical Center Groningen were prospectively analyzed, regardless of the patients’ age at presentation or duration of the disease. Not all patients were treated with cidofovir. To be included, all patients required a history of repeated microsurgery because of severe recurrence of RRP or because of severe technical difficulties in excising or vaporizing the lesion. Local microsurgery was performed, and then cidofovir, 2.5 mg/ml, was injected intralesionally. Treatment was repeated after 6, 12, 18, 24 and 30 weeks. Six male and three female patients were treated with cidofovir. Localization was the glottis in seven and the technically inaccessible dorsum epiglottidis and subglottis in one case each. The seven patients with glottic localization were cured. The two other patients showed recurrences, but at a lower rate than previously. Several times, however, more than six procedures were necessary. Cumulative doses of cidofovir ranged from 10.5 to 128 mg per patient. Cidofovir is a promising and powerful therapeutic approach for the treatment of RRP. Currently, the combination of microsurgery with intralesional cidofovir seems to be the treatment of choice for RRP.