[Results of primary and combined radiotherapy of mouth carcinomas (tongue, tonsil, maxilla, mandible, palate, floor of the mouth cheek mucosa)].

Responses to highvoltage radiotherapy of 320 patients with carcinomas of the oral cavity are discussed. Five year survival rate according to the stage of the, disease were the following ones: in carcinoma of the anterior 2/3 of the tongue and floor of the mouth 20-60%, buccal mucosa, upper and lower jaw 30-50%, base of the tongue 26% and tonsil 30-100%. After simultaneous irradiation of the efferent lymphatics in parimary N0 patients, whose primary tumor subsequently was under control, a significantly lower frequency of metastases to the lymph nodes was found than without coirradiation of the lymph flow. Clinically verifiable metastases of the lymph nodes are also controllable to a high percentage by radiotherapy alone: Only in a little more than five per cent of the primary N1-3 patients with the parimary tumor being under control, additional metastases of the lymph nodes developed later on. The complication rate was 6.8 per cent. Most frequently, osteonecrosis was involved, indeed occurring chiefly in cases, where a primary skeletal manifestation of the tumor already was existing.