ENDOBRONCHIAL RADIOTHERAPY - 149 PATIENTS AT THE SAINT-LOUIS HOSPITAL(PARIS)

Endobronchial tumour obstruction threatens to occur in cases of carcin oma of the bronchus throughout the course of the disease. Such patient s can benefit from relief of the bronchial obstruction by several tech niques which are currently available. We have treated 149 patients wit h endobronchial radiotherapy. Seventy three patients were treated with a view to cure, 47 with a palliative dose and 29 received endobronchi al radiation in complement with external irradiation. The treatment wa s carried out in series repeated every 15 days until a maximum of thre e treatments, consisting of two sessions at 24 hour intervals deliveri ng at each session and irradiating of 7 Gy with a 1 cm catheter. All t he clinical signs were relieved and in 79% of patients there was a sym ptomatic benefit. One hundred and thirty two patients were evaluated b y control endoscopy two months after the treatment and 64 had a comple te histological remission. The median survival was 14.4 months for pat ients treated with intent to cure. Obtaining a histological remission was a guage for prolonged survival (median survival 26.5 months), 11 ( 7.4%) had massive hemoptysis and 13 (8%) irradiation pneumonitis, all of which occurred some time after the therapeutic procedure. The resul ts confirm the feasibility and the good results of endobronchial irrad iation in this field and encourage the idea of controlled multi-centre trials in order to assess a placed of endobronchial radiotherapy in t he therapeutic strategy of bronchial cancer.