Abstract
Radiotherapy poses few clinical problems and produces excellent therapeutic results, although a mild mucositis is seen as a side-effect in a majority of patients. However, we occasionally encounter other cases which suffer severe sequelae due to radiotherapy. Of 27 patients with laryngeal cancer (T1; 5 cases, T2; 21 cases, T3; 1 case) who underwent full-dose radiotherapy at this department between January 1987 and January 1992, 7 cases suffered severe sequelae. These included 3 cases which had a severe laryngeal edema requiring tracheotomy, 4 cases which had a fixation of the vocal cord and 2 cases which had an infection extending to the subcutaneous tissue of the neck (2 out of these 7 cases had has two sequelae simultaneously). As factors responsible for the invasion into the laryngeal tissue, mention can naturally be made of the cancer itself, but there are also factors, such as radiation and the infection attendant upon radiation. Furthermore, surgical procedures including excisional biopsy and laser use should be seen as other possible factors in this invasion.
