Clinical course of patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the upper respiratory and digestive tracts with no evidence of disease 5 years after initial treatment.

Eleven hundred sixty-three patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the upper respiratory and digestive tracts, treated from January 1948 through December 1965, had no evidence of disease five years after the initial treatment and no other manifestation of squamous cell carcinoma within the first five years. After five years, the incidence of disease at the initial location, in the vicinity, or in remote sites was found to be identical in the surgical and irradiation groups. There is a correlation between severe late complications in the irradiated patients and the volume of tissue irradiated.