On the problem of failures of radiotherapy in the treatment of oropharyngeal carcinoma; salvage surgery
Basso Ricci, S.; Grandi, C.; Salvatori, P.
Rays 11(3): 127-131
1986
ISSN/ISBN: 0390-7740 PMID: 3602457 Document Number: 270472
The authors present a series of 53 cases of treatment failure after radiotherapy for oropharyngeal carcinoma, subsequently subjected to salvage surgery. Of these patients, 19 (35.8%) were alive without evidence of disease after a minimum follow-up of 2 years. Surgery thus gave relatively good results in spite of the previous radiation therapy, and the data also show that radiotherapy does not constitute a serious obstacle for successive surgical treatment. Postoperative complications, considering exclusively the cases of mucosal diastasis and fistulas, were relatively high (87.5%), particularly after lymph node dissection and after administration of doses greater than 60 Gy. However, such complication are almost always reversible, although with a long period of hospitalization. The incidence of postoperative mortality was 5.6% (3 deaths), which is relatively low considering that they were salvage operations.