Treatment of medium-sized juxtapapillary melanoma with external Co-60 photon therapy.

Twenty-six patients with medium-sized juxtapapillary choroidal melanomas were irradiated using D-shaped Co-60 beams. The overall 5-year actuarial survival was 86% with a trend towards better 5-year local control with 70 vs. 60 Gy (100 vs. 75%). Of patients with pre-treatment > or =20/200 visual acuity, 37% had functional vision at 5 years.

Safety of a simple asymmetric jaw technique in the treatment of head and neck cancer.

We reviewed our experience treating head and neck malignancies junctioning over the spinal cord using asymmetric collimation. The mean dose delivered to the cord was 43.28 Gy above to the junction, 40.36 Gy below it. With a median follow-up of 20 months, none of our 32 patients developed radiation myelitis.