[Results of combined surgical and radiotherapeutic treatment of oral cancer in relation to the application of the Nominal Standard Dose].

Between 1972 and 1980, a homogeneous group of 116 patients with squamous cell carcinomas in the oral cavity and the oropharynx underwent a combined surgical and radiological treatment. 36 out of them were submitted to a preoperative short-term irradiation with postoperative dose completion, the other 80 patients were only irradiated after the operation. The nominal standard dose (NSD) was calculated for all patients. The group submitted to preoperative short-term irradiation, having the same conditions apart from that, showed considerably less recurrences (13.9%) than the patients irradiated only after the operation (33.7%). Due to the shorter overall treatment period, higher average NSD values have been obtained in case of preoperative short-term irradiation. The authors discuss to what extent the better treatment results of pre- and postoperative irradiation are due to the devitalization effect or to the higher NSD values. The results show, however, that the fractionation scheme should be taken into special consideration in order to optimize the biologic radiation effect in the treatment of carcinomas of the oral cavity.