BRACHYTHERAPY IN ORBITAL TUMORS

Purpose: To evaluate whether the use of iridium-192 brachytherapy woul d reduce the incidence of complications noted with external beam radia tion therapy in patients with orbital tumors. Methods and Materials: T his study is a retrospective review of a clinical series of 25 patient s with various orbital tumors treated with brachytherapy between 1988 and 1995. Results: Patients were observed for an average of 40 months (range, 16-88 months) during which one patient died of metastatic dise ase and 24 patients are alive with no evidence of disease. Recurrent d isease was observed in four patients. In 3 patients, exenteration was necessary and in 22 patients, the eye was preserved. The visual acuiti es after therapy ranged from no light perception to 20/20 (average, 20 /40). Conclusions: Since brachytherapy has been used as an alternative to exenteration, the results of this treatment have been excellent in most patients, However, in advanced disease, external radiation thera py or even mutilating surgery still remains inevitable.