Revolutionary Radiotherapy Technique Promises To Minimize Healthy Tissue Irradiation

Revolutionary Radiotherapy Technique Promises To Minimize Healthy Tissue Irradiation

A new radiotherapeutic approach that is able to specifically target cancer affected tissues was designed by scientists at the University of Granada and the university hospital Virgen de las Nieves in Granada. A batch of eighty patients suffering from epidermoid malignant tumors of the oropharynx and oral cavity were the subjects this new, less invasive, approach was tested on.

This new approach to postoperative oncological treatment seems to have a significantly diminished degree of toxicity, even though its effectiveness is tantamount to the one of the traditional protocol.

All 80 patients were included in the study conducted by the University of Granada in a period of time stretching from 2005 to 2008. The anatomopathological type of proliferative process they presented with was a form of epidermoid cancer of the ENT sphere ( mouth and pharynx). Each and every one of these subjects had previously underwent surgery which implied the removal of one or several lymph nodes. A classification of these lymph nodes was applied so as to divide them into different risk groups. Using this method, physicians were able to spare the areas unlikely prone to recurrence and to direct their weapons against those probably including residual malignant cells. The groundbreaking idea managed to allow the application of a continuous therapy, with a significantly lowered risk of side effects and equal efficiency.

Radiotherapy

It is a well-known fact that overwhelming majority of malignant tumors of the pharynx and mouth metastasize through the lymph nodes and are very prone to recurrence. This is the main reason why they need additional radiotherapy, sometimes in association with chemotherapy. These therapeutic options have a high degree of toxicity, severely damaging the mucous membranes of the mouth and thus forcing patients to halt the treatment. Stopping the treatment at a certain point means lowering its success rate.

The main goal of the above mentioned lymph node classification and the team work involving surgeons, pathologists and many others, is to design an individualized risk map for each patient. This achievement allows physicians to specifically apply treatment to every subject according to their risk of recurrence and to minimize the irradiated volume of tissue in comparison to the traditional treatment.

The new, revolutionary treatment was applied  over a period of three years, during which oncologists managed to obtain a diminished area of irradiation in approximately 44% of subjects, sparing a volume of roughly 118 cc in each patient.It has to be mentioned that there was no increase in recurrence rate and also that almost all ( 95 % ) patients underwent a complete radiotherapeutic cycle, during which signs of toxicity were significantly minimized.

The leader of the study was Miguel Martínez Carrillo from the university hospital Virgen de las Nieves and supervised by University of Granada professors Rosario del Moral Ávila and José Mariano Ruiz de Almodóvar Rivera.