The Role of Radiation Therapy in the Management of Desmoid Tumors

Abstract

Radiation therapy is an effective treatment after incomplete resection of desmoid tumors. We did not observe a benefit for tumor doses exceeding 50 Gy. In some patients with circumscribed intraabdominal desmoid tumors, radiation therapy might be a treatment option with low toxicity, if 3-D treatment planning is utilized.

Role of Radiotherapy in the Management of Desmoid Tumors

“…Careful analysis of the pattern of failure in our series suggests that most failures are within-field. This is in agreement with most previously published series reporting that in-field recurrences are at least as common as marginal recurrences (16,19) or even represent the dominant pattern of failure after RT (1,4,9,15,20). Noted exceptions are series by Leibel et al (21) and Zlotecki et al (12), who found a very low rate of in-field recurrences.…”

“…We found that presentation with recurrent disease after previous surgery was significantly associated with increased risk of local recurrence. The data published so far regarding this issue are equivocal as well; several series found that presentation is a significant risk factor for recurrence (3,5,6,10,12), whereas others have not (13)(14)(15)(16). Moreover Nuyttens et al (1) and Goy et al (9) suggested interaction between presentation and surgical margins in patients treated with surgery alone, implicating a particularly poor prognosis if both risk factors are present.…”

Radiotherapy Is Effective for Desmoid Tumors (Aggressive Fibromatosis) - Long-Term Results of a German Multicenter Study

“…RT has a long tradition in the treatment of desmoids: In 1928, James Ewing, who was the first to propose RT as a treatment option, described that desmoid lesions respond ‘slowly but satisfactorily' to RT [19]. These observations were confirmed by several studies that demonstrated high local control rates after RT [9,12,16,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43]. …”

Fibromatosis (Desmoid Tumor) Involving the Orbit and Cheek

“…therapy 6 and radiotherapy as a primary treatment 7 and as an adjuvant, 8,9 as well as medical treatments including tamoxifen and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. 9,10 The specific chemotherapeutic regime (Vincristine, Actinomycin D, and Cyclophosamide) that was used in our case was used by Raney et al 11 in 1987 on six patients aged 3 months to 7 years with primary or recurrent desmoid tumors.…”