Abstract
Skin cancer is the most common malignant neoplasm in the United States and Europe. However, these tumors are less common in Japan. Radiotherapy is an excellent modality for the treatment of selected basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas. Many patients in a foreign country prefer radiotherapy because of no pain with treatment, no hospitalization and good cosmetic result. On the other hand, skin cancer arising from scars is contraindicated for radiotherapy. A survey of the literature showed that the 5-year recurrence rates were 3 to 10% dependent on the tumor size. In addition, recurrenes following radiotherapy are satisfactorily managed by radical surgical treatment. Total skin electron irradiation for both mycosis fungoides and subcutaneous T cell lymphoma, at least in early stages, leads to a complete remission of long duration. However, the techniques of total skin electron irradiation are very difficult because of difficulty of homogeneous dose distribution for a large field. Malignant melanoma is one of the radioresistant tumors. The in vitro survival curve of malignant melanoma cell is characterized by a wide shoulder, indicating a large ability to repair sublethal radiation damage. The literatures showed that fraction size rather than total dose was of importance for the radiation response of malignant melanoma. Some authors have recently reported the excellent result of treatment for patients with advanced or recurrent carcinoma using 192Ir wire. We described the role of radiotherapy for malignant neoplasm of skin in detail.
