Authors : Vijayakumar S
DOI : 10.18231/j.pjms.2022.119
Volume : 12
Issue : 3
Year : 2022
Page No : 641-644
Introduction: The third most frequent type of cancer in the world is cervical cancer. Traditionally cervical cancer treatment is carried by either Radiation therapy alone and/or with chemotherapy. High doses of Radiation therapy can cause gastric enteritis.
Objective: To study the incidence of radiation enteritis in cervical cancer patients of stage upto IIIA.
Materials and Methods: A total of 94 patients receiving radiation therapy (RT) for cervical cancer treatment were enrolled for the study in our hospital from August 2018 to January 2020. The 94 patients were divided into definitive RT group (64 patients) and Adjuvant RT group (30 patients). The incidences of radiation enteritis were evaluated statistically.
Results: In all cervical cancer patients, early radiation enteritis (RE) observed in 68.08%, and late radiation enteritis observed in 21.1%. Patients treated with definitive RT showed more frequent radiation enteritis than in adjuvant RT. In the group treated with definitive RT, the occurrence of early (RE) is more in the Radical radiotherapy group (RRT), whereas late RE appeared more with concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) group. The late (RE) severe cases (Grade 3,4) observed more with the definitive RT group (only RRT) than in the adjuvant RT group.
Conclusion: In the Definitive RT group, early and late RE occurrence is more than the Adjuvant RT group. The incidence of enteritis was correlated with the lengthening of total irradiation time. Methods to reduce small bowel intervention in RT and volume of irradiation will further decrease enteritis morbidity.
Keywords: Definitive Radiation therapy, Adjuvant Radiation therapy, Radiation enteritis, chemoradiation