[Digestive complications of radiotherapy of gynecologic cancers: therapeutic possibilities].

It appears that there are a certain number of complications in the digestive tract that still occur in spite of improvements in techniques of irradiation therapy. They may only appear a few months or even a few years after the treatment, and sometimes they only appear when the initial growth is considered to have been cured. The clinical picture is dominated by the appearance of fistulae, of adhesions and of stenoses which give rise to sub-acute or sometimes acute obstructions. From the anatomical point of view all elements of the digestive tube are affected with a predominance of the fibro-hyaline elements of the muscles and the arteries. The possibilities for surgical treatment are limited. Excision with anastomosis would seem to be more risky than diversion. We have had to operate on ten of our eleven patients, of whom six died and only one of these directly because of recurrence of the initial growth. Only prevention can lessen the mortality of these severe complications.