Extracorporeal irradiation of tumorous calvaria: a case series

OBJECT When intracranial tumors invade the overlying skull, gross resection typically includes removal of the involved bone. Methods used to repair the resulting structural defect in the cranium include artificial prostheses, allogeneic bone grafts, and autoclaving the autologous graft. The authors have previously reported a case involving high-dose extracorporeal ionizing radiation to treat the tumorous calvaria intraoperatively, followed by reimplantation of the treated bone flap. In this paper the authors report the long-term follow-up of that case, as well as results of using extracorporeal irradiation of tumorous calvaria (EITC) for an additional 20 patients treated similarly. METHODS The decision to undergo EITC was typically anticipated preoperatively, but determined intraoperatively, if upon inspection the bone flap was invaded by tumor. The bone flap was then delivered to the radiation oncology department, where a total dose of 120 Gy was delivered, using a clinical linear accelerator, over a per...