Background: Pelvic irradiation is commonly used in the treatment of pelvic malignancies. Chronic radiation enterocolitis is the most serious complication resulting from such treatment, and it frequently requires surgery. The prognosis for patients after surgery remains ill-defined. We conducted a retrospective study to identify risk factors associated with mortality for patients who received surgery for chronic radiation enterocolitis.
Methods: From 1985 to 2009, a total of 89 patients were diagnosed as having chronic radiation enterocolitis in Taichung Veterans General Hospital. The chart records of 35 surgical and 54 nonsurgical patients were reviewed. A total of 21 candidate risk factors were selected from (1) those related to rapid disease progression (recurrence within 1 year, reoperation within 1 year, short latency), (2) those mentioned in published series (diabetes mellitus, history of smoking, history of abdominopelvic surgery), and (3) other risk factors that might adversely affect outcomes (older age, higher radiation dosage, longer latency period). Factors with p < 0.1 in univariate analysis were subjected to multivariate analysis to identify those that were independent risk factors.
Results: Surgical patients were significantly older (65.09 vs. 61.61 years, p = 0.011), had a longer latency period (17.08 vs. 8.09 months, p = 0.037), and were associated with a higher percentage of radiation uropathy (54.28 vs. 12.96%, p < 0.0001) than nonsurgical patients. There was no difference in radiation dosage between surgical and nonsurgical cases (p = 0.152). Recurrence of radiation enterocolitis within 1 year following surgery (p = 0.022), older age (p = 0.002), and uncured cancer (p = 0.001) were identified as independent risk factors for poor overall survival after surgery. All patients (100%) who had recurrent radiation enterocolitis within 1 year of surgery died within 5 years of recurrence.
Conclusions: The surgical cases were older, had a longer latency period, and had a higher percentage of radiation uropathy .Recurrence of radiation enterocolitis within 1 year after surgery, older age, and uncured cancer were independent risk factors associated with mortality for patients who received surgery for chronic radiation enterocolitis.