Abstract
Radiotherapy and chemo-radiotherapy are generally effective for early laryngeal cancer. However, the local pain due to the mucositis induced by the irradiation often prevents the completion of treatment. Since 2005, we have administrated an opioid to control a pain if necessary. We divided 40 early laryngeal cancer patients into 2 groups of 20 patients, and the influence of treatment with the opioid was investigated in the two groups. One group received the induction of the opioid, and patients were treated from 2008 to 2010. The others were treated before 2004 and did not receive the opioid. Both groups frequently used various painkillers, however, the time after the initiation of treatment when subjects began taking the painkiller was shorter for the after induction group than the before induction group. Ten percent of patients paused radiation treatment in the after induction group, and 70% had to temporarily stop treatment in the before induction group. Thus, the interruption of radiation was significantly less frequent in the after induction group than the before induction group. Our results indicate that the introduction of opioids for radiation patients improved the course of cancer treatment.
