COMBINATION RADIATION AND CHEMOTHERAPY FOR THE TREATMENT OF SQUAMOUS-CELL CARCINOMA OF THE MALE AND FEMALE URETHRA

We report on 2 men and 2 women with locally advanced squamous cell car cinoma of the urethra who were treated with combination chemotherapy a nd radiation. Treatment consisted of 1,000 mg./M.(2) 5-fluorouracil pl us 15 mg./M.(2) mitomycin-C followed by 30 to 50 Gy, external beam rad iation. The 2 women achieved durable complete responses, and are alive with no evidence of disease 94 and 43 months later, respectively. The men also had regional lymph node metastases, and 1 achieved complete response and has no evidence of disease 98 months posttreatment, while the other experienced partial response in the primary tumor and compl ete response in the involved inguinal nodes. The latter patient died o f an unrelated cause with residual disease at 7 months. Only mild toxi city occurred in 3 patients. This regimen of chemotherapy and radiatio n is well tolerated and should be considered as primary therapy for in vasive squamous cell carcinoma of the male and female urethra.