IRRADIATION OF CHOROIDAL MELANOMAS BEFORE ENUCLEATIONquest;

摘要

Abstractcolon;The eyes of 26 patients with choroidal melanomas were irradiated before enucleation at the University Eye Clinic in Tuuml;bingen. Preoperative external beam radiation therapy lpar;PERTrpar; was administered between July 1980 and July 1986. Followhyphen;up ranged from 25 months to 8 years, 4 months with a mean followhyphen;up of 53 months. The average diameter of the tumor base was 15 mm and the height 10 mm. Before enucleation vertical stationary electron beam irradiation lpar;10hyphen;12 meVrpar; was applied to the tumorhyphen;containing eye and the orbit. The dose was increased during the course of the study from 12 to 40 Gy. Enucleation was performed by a technique that cauterized the vasculature before severing it and avoided maneuvers that would cause changes in intraocular pressure. The patients were reexamined between August and November 1988. Nine lpar;34.6percnt;rpar; had died of metastases of melanoma, six of them during the second postoperative yearsemi; one patient was alive with metastases. Subsequent death occurred in all patients who had melanomas of epithelioid cell type lpar;3 of 3rpar; and in no patients who had melanomas of spindle A cell type lpar;0 of 3rpar;. In this small series PERT had no apparent beneficial effect on the patient's life expectancy.RETINA9colon;101hyphen;104, 1989