Analysis of the results of irradiation in the treatment of tonsillar region carcinomas.

Five year follow-up data are presented for 215 patients with carcinomas of the tonsillar region, all of whom were treated by radiation therapy alone. Data are analyzed retrospectively to determine the factors associated with prognosis. As in many reports in the literature, prognostic factors regarding survival of the patients were: the initial tumor site (tumor extension to the base of the tongue was considered to be a bad prognosis factor); the initial tumor size and lymph node involvement (9.4% 5 year survival for T3N3 vs 73.7% 5 year survival for T1N0 cases); and histological type of differentiation (better prognosis for well differentiated carcinomas than for poorly differentiated tumors). Studies on the biological and volumetric data (the NSD value and target volume were calculated for each case) allowed a statistical and critical correlation between therapeutic results and physical characteristics of the radiation treatment.