CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, Vol 26, 269-273, Copyright
© 1976 by American Cancer Society
Definitive Radiation Therapy
Simon Kramer M.D.1
1 Professor and Chairman, Department of Radiation Therapy and Nuclear Medicine, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Definitive irradiation is a major factor in curative cancer therapy; a decisive increase in the survival of cancer patients has resulted over the last 15 years. (Table.)
"In patients with early cancer of the oral cavity, oropharynx, larynx, cancer of the cervix uteri, seminoma of the testis and in many patients with cancer of the prostate, radiation therapy is the treatment of choice. . ."
In patients with early cancer of the oral cavity, oropharynx, larynx, cancer of the cervix uteri, seminoma of the testis and in many patients with cancer of the prostate, radiation therapy is the treatment of choice, since the cure rates are equal or superior to those obtained by ablative surgery (70-90 percent five-year survival). These patients also enjoy a better quality of life by retaining functional and cosmetic integrity.
Dramatic improvement in long-term survival has been obtained in Hodgkin's disease. At other sites, or in the abovementioned sites with more advanced disease, the combination of radiation therapy and conservative surgery when possible, for cancer of the breast, soft tissue sarcoma, carcinoma of the corpus uteri, has shown excellent local and regional control (50-70 percent).
Much must still be done to establish the optimal combination of surgery and radiation therapy. When this occurs, it is likely that major improvements will result in the local and regional control of cancer. This, in turn, will create a stimulus for the control of disseminated subclinical disease by appropriate chemotherapeutic agents. Optimal multimodality therapy may well produce major increases in cancer survival within the next decade.
