CONTINUOUS HYPERFRACTIONATED ACCELERATED RADIOTHERAPY IN THE TREATMENT OF HIGH-GRADE ASTROCYTOMAS

Between May 1993 and January 1995, 36 patients with high-grade astrocy tomas were treated with 1.05 Gy continuous hyperfractionated accelerat ed radiotherapy three times daily to a total target dose of 59.85 Gy i n 19 days with 6-h intervals. The median age of the patients was 51 ye ars and the median follow-up was 58 weeks. The median survival rate wa s 58 weeks and the cumulative survival rare was 22% at 2 years, No sev ere toxicity occurred in patients treated with this fractionation sche me. These results suggest that continuous hyperfractionated accelerate d radiotherapy is an altered fractionation schedule for: high-grade as trocytomas with tolerable acute toxicity and survival rates comparable to conventional fractionation and to other altered fractionation sche dules. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.