Role of Radiotherapy in the Treatment of Nasoethmoidal Adenocarcinoma

Objective: To assess the efficacy of radiotherapy in the treatment of nasoethmoidal adenocarcinoma. Design: Multicenter, retrospective study. Setting: Eleven French hospitals. Patients: The medical records of 418 patients who presented with nasoethmoidal adenocarcinoma from January 1, 1976, through December 31, 2001, were evaluated. A total of 324 patients were treated with a combination of surgery and radiotherapy, and 55 were treated with surgery only. Main Outcome Measures: Survival rates, disease recurrence, and postoperative complications. Results: The 5-year Kaplan-Meier survey revealed survival rates of 64.5% for the surgery-only group and 70.8% for the combined-treatment group. In the surgery-only group, 28 patients (51%) had disease recurrence ( 24 local, 2 regional, and 2 distant). Of the 55 patients in the combined-treatment group, 31 patients (56%) had disease recurrence ( 29 local, 1 regional, and 1 distant). Immediate postoperative complications in the combined-treatment group were hemorrhages in 2 patients, meningitis in 3 patients, and cerebrospinal fluid leakage in 4 patients, but no deaths occurred. In the surgery-only group, 1 patient had meningitis, 2 had cerebrospinal fluid leaking but no hemorrhage, and 5 died postoperatively. Conclusion: The results of this retrospective study suggest that radiotherapy can be used to treat nasoethmoidal adenocarcinoma, but its usefulness should be confirmed with further prospective studies.