Electron beam therapy for skin cancer of the head and neck

Abstract

We retrospectively analyzed 99 patients with 115 sites of skin cancer, predominantly involving the head and neck, treated with electron beam therapy. Our objective was to determine the local control rate, radiotherapy reactions, cosmesis, and salvage treatment. Forty-three percent of patients received radiotherapy after biopsy, 41% were treated for recurrence following other modalities of treatment, and 16% had positive margins after surgical excision. With minimum and mean follow-up of 24 and 47 months, respectively, local control was achieved in 88% of patients. Six of 14 local recurrences were salvaged by surgery (five patients) and radiotherapy (one patient) for a total local control of 93%. Serial photographs and data were available to analyze cosmesis in 56 patients. Excellent or good cosmesis was achieved in 91%. Side effects were mild and self-limiting. EBT is highly efficacious and offers excellent cosmesis.

Response Monitoring by Positron Emission Tomography during Radiotherapy of a Squamous Cell Skin Carcinoma

“…According to Lovett et al, newly diagnosed squamous cell skin cancer was locally controlled in 87% of cases (recurrent tumors in 65%) [9]. Comparable results were reported by other groups [10,11]. FDG-PET has been used for response monitoring in both lung and esophageal cancer.…”

Incidence of cervical node involvement in metastatic cutaneous malignancy involving the parotid gland

“…1 The skin of the head and neck is a common site for the development of cutaneous cancer, 2 and both SCC and malignant melanoma pose a particular therapeutic challenge because of their potential for metastatic spread. Overall, approximately 5% of cutaneous SCCs spread to regional lymph nodes, whereas the metastatic rate for cutaneous melanoma is approximately 20%.…”

Radiotherapy treatment for nonmelanoma skin cancer

“…Despite the inferior local control rate associated with EBRT on multivariate analysis reported by Lovett et al [32], several other series reported favorable outcomes with local control rate comparable with superficial x-ray treatments, ranging from 81 to 95% [29,[40][41][42][43]. Furthermore, these studies reported good cosmetic outcomes in contrast to those reported by Lovett et al [32].…”

“…The ability to deliver a uniform radiation dose to a few centimeter depth of human tissue with a steep dose fall beyond the therapy range makes the electron beam suitable for superficial cancer treatments [39], including skin cancer in the H/N region [40]. The energies used for electron beam radiotherapy (EBRT) vary from 4 to 20 MeV, resulting in an effective treatment depth of 2-6 cm.…”