Radiation therapy of the nasopharyngeal carcinoma

From 1968 till 1977, out of 84 patients with a malig oma of the nasopharynx 44 underwent sole radiation therapy with curative doses because of histologically established nasopharyngeal carcinoma. The 3-year survival rates for all the carcinomas amount to 63.2%, 5-year survival to 46.5%. Prognoses differ according to the histological type of carcinoma, but therapeutic results are also influenced by osseous involvement or by spread to the lymph nodes. Local recurrences appeared in 20% at the base of the skull, at the pharyngeal roof or in the region of the posterior nasal apertures. Following analysis of the patient collective a critical examination of imaginable and of practically used irradiation schedules is performed. Of the possible arrangements for radiation therapy those with readily reproducible parallel opposed field adjustments using ultrahard photon beams are to be preferred. (orig.)