Analysis of patients treated with radiotherapy in the year 1990.

We analyzed the patients treated with radiotherapy in Gunma University Hospital in 1990, to determine the characteristics of the practice of radiotherapy. During this period, 540 patients with various diseases received radiation therapy. Five hundred thirty-one (98.3%) of them had malignant tumors, and the remaining nine had benign diseases. Of the patients with malignant tumors, primary tumor of the head and neck (21.7%), and lung and mediastinum (13.0%) were most common. Four of nine patients with benign diseases had pterygium. Three hundred thirty-two patients (63%) had previously untreated malignant tumors. Curative radiotherapy was performed in 296 patients (56%), and palliative radiotherapy in 235 (44%). Of CRG patients, 43% were treated with radiation alone and 40% with surgery followed by radiotherapy. The proportion who received curative radiotherapy was the highest in patients with cervical cancer (80%). Twenty-four of 34 patients treated with intracavitary irradiation had cervical cancer. Interstitial irradiation was performed in nine patients. Four patients with pterygium were treated postoperatively with surface irradiation using an Sr-90 contact device. Radioactive iodine was administered to ten patients: eight thyroid cancer patients and two hyperthyroid patients.