Re-Irradiation in Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Head and Neck
Article Category: Research Article
Published Online: Oct 11, 2023
Page range: 40 - 48
Received: Dec 17, 2022
Accepted: Mar 01, 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/fco-2023-0002
Keywords
© 2023 João Barros et al., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Background
Re-irradiation as a therapeutic option for locoregional recurrence in patients with recurrent, persistent tumour or second primary malignant neoplasm has great advantages for locally advanced unresectable tumours.
Methods
We intended to characterise the patient pool that underwent re-irradiation and to perform a comparative analysis between previously known data related to prognostic factors with an impact on 2 years OS of these patients, and evaluate the therapeutic impact of re-irradiation in patients with recurrent, persistent tumour or second primary malignant neoplasm in the head and neck region, treated at the Radiotherapy Department in Portuguese Institute of Oncology in Coimbra (IPOC), from the year 2016 to 2020.
Results
A total of 39 patients were included in this study. All patients were submitted to both primary radiotherapy and re-irradiation with a median time interval between treatment of 20 months (minimum: 8 – maximum: 190). Only the time between irradiations was associated with a decrease in the risk of mortality (HR=0.828; CI 95% 0.731–0.939; p=.03). There were no significant differences in terms of toxicity severity between irradiations.
Conclusion
Re-irradiation is an important therapeutic alternative in the treatment of patients with malignant tumours in the head and neck region.