title: [Diagnosis and treatment on osteoradionecrosis of skull base after radiotherapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the diagnosis and management on osteoradionecrosis (ORN) of skull base in the patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) after radiotherapy.
  
  
  METHODS
  All patients (n = 15) diagnosed as NPC and ORN of skull base were studied on the clinical data, diagnosis and therapy.
  
  
  RESULTS
  All the patients were found with foul odor, headache, bleeding and exposed necrotic bone. 9 patients were treated by surgery, among them 2 patients died of temporal lobe radionecrosis, and the survival time of remaining 7 patients was 2 to 7 years. 5 patients with extensive ORN and 1 patient with local ORN were treated by conservative methods, among them 3 died of nasopharyngeal bleeding and 1 died of respiratory and heart failure, survival time of the remaining 2 patients was 3 to 5 years.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  ORN can be diagnosed by clinical characteristics, CT or MR, and endoscopic findings. Surgery is the best choice for ORN. The patients with extensive ORN or radiation-induced cranial neuropathy had poor prognosis. The most common causes of death were nasopharyngeal bleeding and exhaustion.
authors.affiliation: Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Second Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510120, China. xiaomingh@hotmail.com
authors.forename: Xiao-min
authors.initials: XM
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Yi-qing
authors.initials: YQ
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Hai-qiang
authors.initials: HQ
authors.lastname: Mai
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Xiang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Man-quan
authors.initials: MQ
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.forename: Hua-qing
authors.initials: HQ
authors.lastname: Mi
authors.forename: Geng
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Xu
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009303:Nasopharyngeal Neoplasms / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D010025:Osteoradionecrosis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000601:surgery*; D019291:Skull Base / Q000473:pathology*