[Dystrophy and necrosis following radiotherapy for maxillary cancer (author's transl)].

About 10% of patients developed severe sequelae following radiotherapy, which had been associated with surgical treatment, even though they were, or appeared to be cured. Complications affected the skin and soft tissues (causing skin retraction, loss of substance, and sometimes trismus) and bone (necrosis required surgical treatment, and when there was associated cutaneous dystrophy, resulted in exposure of the bone and severe functional and esthetic problems). A critical study of the radiotherapeutic techniques used suggests that the dose given should be reduced, the fields modified, and Cobalt used in preference to electrons in most cases.