The importance of postoperatic radiotherapy for the reduction of the local recurrence rate of mastocarcinomas

In order to find out the frequency of local recurrences, the authors evaluated 433 case report of patients with mastocarcinomas who had been submitted to postoperative radiotherapy on a gammatron between January 1973 and December 1977 at the Radiologic Hospital of the University of Marburg. A local recurrence within the region of thoracic wall, axilla or supraclavicular cavity has found in 24 cases (5.5%). For half of these cases, a formation of remote metastases was clinically demonstrable either at the same time as the local recurrence was found or a few months before or afterwards. In 63% of all cases, the local recurrence appeared within the first two years after operation and irradiation. The study contains a comparative table of the local recurrences found in twenty examinations. These patients were either not irradiated or submitted to a postoperative radiotherapy under high voltage conditions. The rate of local recurrences of the only operated groups was 22.2% on an average, that of the groups of patients irradiated after surgery was 6.4%. (orig.)