Influence of radiotherapy treatment time on control of laryngeal cancer: comparisons between centres in Manchester, UK and Toronto, Canada.

Abstract

A comparison has been made of the influence of treatment time on tumour control rates for 496 (T2 and T3) larynx cancer cases in Manchester, UK and 1001 (T1-T4) cases in Toronto, Canada. Both series of patients were treated in fairly short overall times, commonly 3 weeks in Manchester and 4-5 weeks in Toronto. All the tumour control data were analysed using the same method to obtain values of fitted dose, fractionation and time parameters. The analysis showed the following. (a) Differences between the total combined (T2 + T3) data sets from the two centres, fitted using direct analysis and the LQ model incorporating a parameter for overall treatment time, were not significant (p = 0.17) and close similarity in control rates was observed using treatment regimens common to both series. (b) The Manchester series over 9-41 days and the Toronto series over 14-84 days are both consistent in showing for (T2 + T3) tumours the presence of a mean time factor of 0.6-0.8 Gy/day required to abrogate the decrease in tumour control concomitant with an increase in overall treatment time from the minimum the maximum employed in each series. (c) When a parameter was included in the model to test for the possible presence of a lag period before the time factor became operative, the lag was not significant for the Toronto data, in contrast to a significant lag for the Manchester data alone (T2 + T3 data).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)