Ghoshal Sushmita, Chakraborty Santam, Moudgil Neeru, Kaur Manreet, Patel Firuza D
Department of Radiotherapy, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India.
Indian J Palliat Care. 2009 Jul;15(2):137-40. doi: 10.4103/0973-1075.58460.
To evaluate a 2-day course of palliative radiation in patients diagnosed to have inoperable or metastatic head and neck carcinoma.
To evaluate the symptom relief and quality of life in these patients after this short course of radiation.
A pilot study was conducted in a tertiary care institute in India.
Fifteen patients with stage IV B/C disease, KPS 50-70, were inducted after informed consent. External radiation was given in 2 days, two fractions per day, 6 h apart to a total dose of 14 Gy. Washington University quality of life questionnaire (QOL) was used for assessing QOL before and after radiation. Patients who had more than 50% regression of disease received a second course of similar radiation. All patients were followed up for a mean duration of 6 months.
The Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to evaluate the difference between the QOL scores before and after treatment.
Out of these 15 patients, majority (13) were males and the mean age of the patients was 62 years. After the first course, all patients had good symptom relief, improvement in the QOL, and 13 out of 15 had more than 50% objective response. The short duration of the treatment was favored by the outstation patients and their attendants. It may be concluded that this short course of radiation is an effective tool for palliative radiation and merits a larger randomized trial.
评估对诊断为不可切除或转移性头颈癌患者进行为期2天的姑息性放疗疗程。
评估这些患者在接受这一短疗程放疗后的症状缓解情况及生活质量。
在印度一家三级医疗机构进行了一项初步研究。
15例IV B/C期疾病、KPS评分50 - 70的患者在获得知情同意后入选。在2天内进行外照射，每天2次，间隔6小时，总剂量为14 Gy。使用华盛顿大学生活质量问卷（QOL）评估放疗前后的生活质量。疾病消退超过50%的患者接受第二个类似的放疗疗程。所有患者平均随访6个月。
采用Wilcoxon符号秩检验评估治疗前后QOL评分的差异。
在这15例患者中，大多数（13例）为男性，患者的平均年龄为62岁。在第一个疗程后，所有患者的症状均得到良好缓解，生活质量得到改善，15例中有13例有超过50%的客观缓解。外地患者及其陪护人员对治疗时间短表示满意。可以得出结论，这种短疗程放疗是一种有效的姑息性放疗手段，值得进行更大规模的随机试验。
