Background: Radiotherapy is an established treatment for some types of patients with nonmelanoma skin cancer. A hypofractionated schedule has been proposed as a valuable option for elderly disabled patients to minimize the number of hospital visits.
Objective: We sought to compare a weekly hypofractionated orthovoltage radiotherapy regimen with a standard daily one for the treatment of nonmelanoma skin cancer.
Methods: A retrospective cohort study was performed on 436 tumors. Overall survival, disease-free survival, and cosmetic outcome were measured. Life-table analysis, Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, and multivariate Cox regression model were performed.
Results: The hypofractionated regimen was not associated with increased recurrence rates and mortality, or with a poorer cosmetic outcome, when compared with the daily schedule.
Limitations: Absence of complete information about acute treatment toxicity and a shorter follow-up time for patients receiving the weekly schedule are limitations of this study.
Conclusions: A weekly hypofractionated regimen of orthovoltage radiotherapy seems to be the most appropriate approach in elderly disabled patients with nonmelanoma skin cancers.
Keywords: basal cell carcinoma; keratinocyte carcinoma; radiotherapy; skin cancer; squamous cell carcinoma; therapy.
Copyright © 2015 American Academy of Dermatology, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.