Objective To investigate the efficacy of low-temperature plasma radiofrequency ablation and CO₂ laser surgery against early glottic laryngeal cancer and the effect on postoperative quality of life and laryngeal function of patients.Methods The data on 83 patients with early glottic laryngeal cancer treated with minimally invasive propping laryngoscopy between January 2014 and March 2016 was retrospectively analyzed. These patients were grouped according to treatments. SPSS20.0 was used for data processing. The surgical indicators and complications of the two groups were observed, laryngeal function recovery and voice disorder index were compared, and postoperative quality of life was evaluated. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to analyze the prognosis and evaluate the long-term efficacy.Results The duration of surgery [(8.5±1.4) vs (12.4±2.3) min]in the observation group was shorter than in the control group (P<0.05), but there was no significant difference in intraoperative bleeding [(10.6±5.3) vs (11.2±3.8)ml] or postoperative complications (P>0.05). Postoperative laryngeal function recovery in the observation group (84.2% vs 88.9%) was not significantly different from that in the control group (P>0.05). The score of vocal cord morphology (1.2±0.4 vs 2.0±0.8) and VHI index of the observation group were better than in the control group (P<0.05). The score of each dimension of life quality in the observation group one month after operation was higher than that of the control group (P<0.05).There was no significant difference in the recurrence rate (4.4% vs 2.7%), disease-free survival rate (95.6% vs 97.3%) or overall survival rate (93.3% vs 92.1%) between the two groups three years after surgery (P>0.05).Conclusions Low temperature plasma radiofrequency ablation and CO₂ laser are effective treatments for early glottic laryngeal cancer, but the first approach is more conductive to postoperative quality of life and voice/vocal cord protection, which is worthy of wider application.