Quality of Life of Oral Cancer Patients After Low-Dose-Rate Interstitial Brachytherapy

Brachytherapy for tongue cancer in the very elderly is an alternative to external beam radiation

“…Owing to the adverse effects of treatment with external irradiation, patients with head and neck cancer experience bouts of serious illness, debility and numerous symptoms including pain, dysphagia, weight loss and xerostomia [9,10]. However, most early and late complications of brachytherapy for tongue cancer are limited to the area treated, and patients recover in several months [4,5,8]. There is a report that age is a factor influencing the outcome of tongue cancer treatment [11].…”

“…Radiotherapy is now one of the most powerful modalities for the treatment of cancer, and several published studies have demonstrated the feasibility of radiotherapy with curative intent for every type of head and neck cancer [1,2]. Because the use of conventional external beam radiotherapy for head and neck cancer has been reported to cause severe collateral effects, several special techniques have particular relevance to the treatment of the head and neck cancer in the elderly [1,3,4]. Brachytherapy is another modality that may be of relevance to the treatment of elderly patients with tongue cancer.…”

Disease control using low-dose-rate brachytherapy is unaffected by comorbid severity in oral cancer patients

“…However, because important posttreatment events, such as recurrence and cancer-related death, occur within the first 18 months after treatment in most cancer patients [1] and in view of our co-author's finding that most locoregional recurrences after LDR-BT for early tongue cancer occur within 2 years [25], a 2 year follow-up period was considered to be sufficient for the analyses performed in this report. QOL has been increasingly used as an outcome parameter and must be given serious consideration when selecting a treatment [12]. The QOL of oral cancer patients treated with LDR-BT is relatively high whereas the QOL after surgery or EBRT is immediately reduced, and changes in only a few functions and symptoms after LDR-BT have been discovered to be affected by T stage, tumour site and complications.…”

“…Low-dose-rate brachytherapy (LDR-BT) has played a particularly important role in the treatment of early oral cancer because it delivers a high radiation dose to a limited volume while sparing the surrounding tissues and yields results similar to those of surgery. Moreover, the patients' physical and mental stress levels are considered to be lower than those for surgery or external-beam radiotherapy (EBRT) because the LDR-BT sources are implanted under local anaesthesia and LDR-BT has a low incidence of complications [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. Therefore, LDR-BT is performed at our institution even for the treatment of patients judged to be inoperable by surgeons or anaesthetists because of advanced age, severe comorbidity or any other reason.…”

Remote radioactive seed-loading device for permanent brachytherapy of oral cancer with Au-198 grains

“…With regard to oral cancer, two brachytherapy methods are performed in Japan. One is a temporary method using Ir-192 or Cs-137 needles, and the other is a permanent method using Au-198 grains [1,2]. The latter requires implanting small radioactive Au grains (2.5 mm in length and 0.8 mm in diameter), and involves no diet-restriction, whereas the former requires a 3-5 day diet-restriction period during which needles are inserted intra-orally to the cancerous tissue.…”