title: Management of vulvar carcinoma radiation toxicity, results and failure analysis in 44 patients (1980-1989).
abstract: A retrospective analysis was performed on 44 patients with squamous carcinoma of the vulva (1980-1989). Patients were divided into two subgroups, group I (n = 39) treated with curative intent with surgery alone or with surgery combined with radiotherapy and group II (n = 5) treated with palliative intent with irradiation alone. The five-year cancer-specific survival rate for group I was 65%. Although this is a group of elderly patients, it was concluded that curative therapy should be aggressive and concessions which lead to suboptimal treatment should be avoided. It is essential to achieve free surgical margins. If it is decided to irradiate, no concessions should be made with respect to dose or overall treatment time. Poor results were obtained in the group treated with palliative intent with a six week treatment scheme of five fractions/wk. All irradiated patients suffered from moist desquamation as acute side-effect. Serious late side-effects did not occur.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Oncology, Leiden University Medical Centre, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Snijders-Keilholz
authors.forename: J B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Trimbos
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hermans
authors.forename: J W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Leer
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000401:mortality / Q000532:radiotherapy* / Q000601:surgery; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D010166:Palliative Care; D011878:Radiotherapy / Q000009:adverse effects*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D015996:Survival Rate; D014846:Vulvar Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality / Q000532:radiotherapy* / Q000601:surgery