Abstract
We examined recurrences and their forms in early pharyngeal cancers treated by irradiation and the obtained treatment policy in the future. From 1978 to 1994 sixty nine previously untreated patients with squamous cell carcinomas of the pharynx were examined. Their primary sites were the nasopharynx in 28, the oropharynx in 35 and the hypopharynx in 6. As a rule, T1 and T2 were assumed to be an early stage. In the early nasopharyngeal cancers, we observed many distant metastasis recurrences, similar to the number of recurrences in advanced cases. In the oropharyngeal cancers, a lot of local recurrences were detected in the anterior pillar and the soft palate as tumor subsite, in the invasive and ulcerative tumor as macroscopic tumor type, and in the well-differentiated tumor as histological differentiation. In the hypopharyngeal cancers, early pyriform cancers seemed to require an application of the radiotherapy. In the cancers of nasopharynx and oropharynx, the improvement is expected because of the potentiation by the use of the radiotherapy together with chemotherapy.
