Risk of Post-Operative, Pre-Radiotherapy Contralateral Neck Recurrence in Patients Treated with Surgery Followed by Adjuvant Radiotherapy for Human Papilloma Virus-Associated Tonsil Cancer.

CONCLUSIONS: Patients who develop very early contralateral neck disease, between completion of ipsilateral neck dissection and the initiation of radiotherapy, have a higher ratio of positive nodes to total nodes resected in the ipsilateral neck. These findings suggest that proper selection of patients for omission of treatment of the contralateral, node-negative neck should be made with this in mind, with future studies needed to document the impact on toxicity and disease outcomes from such an approach.
ADVANCES IN KNOWLEDGE: Pathologic risk factors in the dissected, ipsilateral neck in patients with tonsil cancer may inform the risk of contralateral neck failure. Patient selection for future, prospective efforts to examine sparing of the contralateral neck need to be based with these risk factors in mind.
PMID: 31600090 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: The British Journal of Radiology - October 9, 2019 Category: Radiology Authors: Gershowitz J, Chao HH, Doucette A, Lukens JN, Swisher-McClure S, Weinstein GS, O'Malley BW, Chalian AA, Rassekh CH, Newman JG, Cohen RB, Bauml JM, Aggarwal C, Lin A Tags: Br J Radiol Source Type: research