This is a clinical study of 55 patients with maxillary squamous cell carcinoma treated in Sapporo Medical College from 1977 to 1985. These patients were treated with a combination of radiotherapy, regional chemotherapy via a superficial temporal artery and surgery. They were divided into three groups according to their surgical procedures, A) necrotomy, B) reduction operation and C) radical operation, respectively. The cumultive 5-year survival rate was 31% in group A, 30% in group B and 47% in group C. The final local tumor control rate was 27% in group A, 40% in group B and 68% in group C. The patients in group C had lower incidences of local tumor rests and recurrence, but a higher incidence of distant metastasis than those in the other groups. The most frequent cause of treatment failure in the patients with cervical metastasis was the failure of local tumor control. When the maxillary tumor was well controlled by either external radiation or radical neck dissection, the prognosis was not poor even in those patients.
