Hydroxyurea and radiation therapy in the treatment of carcinoma of the cervix

Abstract

Notwithstanding the marked improvement in radiation technology over the past decades, the survival rates of patients with cervical cancer who receive this therapy remains unsatisfactory. It is clear that fewer women are dying from cervical cancer, however, this is not related to improved therapy for invasive cervical cancer. Rather, the significant decrease in the death rate is a direct result of the lower incidence of invasive cervical cancer related to the Papanicolau smear which allows for the diagnosis of cervical cancer in an in situ stage. In support of this contention that improved radiation technological advances have not led to concomitant increase in survival, are the 5-year survival rates utilizing kilavoltage as compared to megavoltage radiation equipment as reported by Fletcher and Rutledge [1]. As seen in Table 1, the radiotherapy results for stage IIB and HIB cervical cancer did not improve from the change from kilavoltage (1948–1954) and megavoltage (1954–1963) time periods.