Ureteral injury following irradiation therapy for carcinoma of the cervix.

Ureters tolerate radiation well as manifested by the low incidence of injury. However, ureteral injury can occur with high-dose radiation especially when the majority is delivered by radium. Eight such cases are presented. A retrospective study of 100 asymptomatic women treated with radiation for cervical carcinoma over 5 years previously demonstrated only 4 incidences of ureteral injury if dilatation was used as the indicator. To the contrary, 5 patients had improvement of their pre-treatment intravenous pyelogram following radiation. Emphasis was placed on closer followup of the ureters by intravenous pyelograms after high-dose radiation.