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Clinical
results of long-surviving brain tumor patients who underwent boron neutron
capture therapy
Hatanaka H, Nakagawa Y.
Department of Neurosurgery, Teikyo University, Tokyo,
Japan
Purpose. The present report is a review of long-term survivors in the patients
with malignant brain tumors treated by boron neutron capture therapy.
Methods
and Material. One-hundred twenty patients with 119 intracranial tumors and one
extracranial nerve-related tumor were treated by the current standard technique
of boron-neutron capture therapy (BNCT) as of December 1992, using
10B-sodium-mercaptoundecahydrododecaborate.
Results. Out of 87 patients operated
on before May 1987, 18 lived or have lived longer than 5 years.
Nine of these 18
lived or have lived longer than 10 years out of 53 patients operated on before
May 1982.
Among more-than-10-year survivors, only two died at 17 and 12 years.
All of the other are still alive.
The two died of delayed radiation damage
because BNCT was applied to glioblastomas which recurred after their
conventional radiotherapy.
They lacked evidence of tumors when they died.
Out of
these nine more-than-10-year survivors, three had been previously treated by
conventional external radiotherapy and they developed radiation damage which
brought all patients ultimately to an incapacitated condition.
Two of the three
died. All the other 6 who were free from previous radiation history are active
in their jobs and have no evidence of tumors.
Conclusion. It can be suggested
that BNCT is a radiotherapy that can produce "cure" of both malignant
and benign brain tumors while preserving a good quality of life if conducted
without conventional radiotherapy.
PMID: 8175390 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Source:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8175390&dopt=Abstract |
