Does Age Impact Recurrence After Image-Guided Superficial Radiotherapy for Skin Cancers?

By: Justine Landin, PhD
Posted: Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Image-guided superficial radiotherapy may be a good treatment option for patients of all ages who have early-stage nonmelanoma skin cancer and are poor candidates for surgery or prefer to avoid surgery, according to Aaron S. Farberg, MD, of the University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, and colleagues. In fact, 2-, 4- and 6-year freedom from recurrence rates were all higher than 99% and did not appear to differ across younger (< 65) and older (≥ 65) age groups. The findings of this large retrospective study were published in the journal Geriatrics.

“These findings demonstrate that image-guided superficial radiotherapy is a viable therapeutic option for patients with nonmelanoma skin cancers regardless of patient age, sex, or stage and bolster previous findings that image-guided superficial radiotherapy demonstrates excellent local tumor control and absolute lesion control and superior recurrence rates in this cohort relative to traditional stereotactic radiotherapy and historical rates of Mohs micrographic surgery,” stated the study investigators.

Biopsy-proven lesions from patients younger than age 65 (n = 3,158) or aged 65 and older (n = 16,911) who were treated with image-guided superficial radiotherapy following the Ladd-Yu protocol were obtained from 28 institutions across 12 states. High-resolution dermal ultrasound was performed to evaluate clinical responses during initial stimulation and following treatment completion. Freedom from recurrence and differences across groups were analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier or log-rank test, respectively.

Overall freedom from recurrence rates at follow-up were found to be 99.7% (at 2 years), 99.6% (at 4 years), and 99.6% (at 6 years). Recurrence rates did not appear to differ across age (P = .8) or sex across both age groups (P > .9). However, lesions in the older age group were found to have an association between recurrence and stage (P = .03), which was not observed in younger patients (P = .7).

Disclosure: Dr. Farberg reported no conflicts of interest. For full disclosures of the other study authors, visit mdpi.com.

Geriatrics