Scientific paper
A randomized trial of preoperative radiotherapy in cancer of the oropharynx and hypopharynx

https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9610(78)90268-4Get rights and content

Abstract

One hundred patients with stage II and stage III cancer of the oropharynx and hypopharynx were treated under a protocol in which they were randomly selected for treatment by surgery alone or by combined preoperative radiotherapy and surgery. The schedule of preoperative radiation therapy chosen was 2,000 rads from a cobalt 60 machine delivered in five days. Eighty-six of the patients were evaluable at three years; there was no difference in the outcome of the treatment of the two groups. A similar study is urgently needed to determine the value of postoperative radiotherapy in the management of similar cancers.

References (9)

  • F Buscke et al.

    Radical preoperative roentgen therapy in primarily inoperable advanced cancers of the head and neck

    Radiology

    (1959)
  • RC Hoye et al.

    Effectiveness of small amounts of preoperative irradiation in preventing the growth of tumor cells disseminated at surgery

    Cancer

    (1961)
  • CA Perez et al.

    Preoperative radiation of head and neck cancer

    Semin Oncol

    (1977)
  • FR Hendrickson

    The results of low dose preoperative irradiation for advanced carcinoma of the larynx

    Frot Rad Ther Oncol

    (1970)
There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (54)

  • Adverse effects of chemoradiotherapy on invasion and metastasis of tumor cells

    2020, Genes and Diseases
    Citation Excerpt :

    Analysis of the 10-year data from the German CAO/ARO/AIO-94 phase 3 trial on rectal cancer showed that the prognosis of patients after chemoradiotherapy was generally poor and the migration of tumors increased after downstaging.13 An association between radiotherapy and metastases of the oropharynx and hypopharynx tumors was discovered in 1978.14 Subsequent studies have also shown that radiotherapy increases the risk of distant metastasis by increasing the number of circulating tumor cells in NSCLC and bladder cancer.15

  • Postoperative strategies after primary surgery for squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck

    2010, Oral Oncology
    Citation Excerpt :

    Initially, pre-operative radiotherapy was preferred which was mainly based on the assumption that radiation would be more efficacious when tumour vascularisation was most optimal prior to surgery. However, this hypothesis could not be confirmed in a RCT in which patients with oropharyngeal and hypopharyngeal cancer with poor prognostic features were randomly assigned to receive surgery alone or pre-operative radiotherapy and surgery.11 It should be noted that the pre-operative regimen in this study consisted of 2000 rads only in five consecutive days, which is probably to low to expect a significant beneficial effect.

View all citing articles on Scopus

Presented at the Joint Meeting of the American Society for Head and Neck Surgery and the Society of Head and Neck Surgeons, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, May 29–31, 1978.

1

From The Departments of Otolaryngology and Radiology, Boston University School of Medicine, and Boston Veterans Administration Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts.

View full text