In the radiotherapy of tongue cancer interstitial radiotherapy is the most common as the first choice of treatment of early lesions because of the superiority in its treatment results and conservation of function.
However, in the locally advanced cases with/without neck node metastases the ways of treatment were controversy.
In the present report two cases of tongue cancer with neck metastases at the first visit were treated by interstitial radiotherapy. The lesions were well controlled on the primary site of the tongue by interstitial radiotherapy in both cases.
In the first case the patient had a fixed neck node metastasis and was done the interstitial radiotherapy and then the radical neck dissection followed by external radiotherapy of 60.5 Gy.
In the second case the patient had multiple neck node metastasis and was done the interstitial radiotherapy and then the radical neck dissection followed by external radiotherapy of 50.4 Gy. The patient of the first case was surviving more than 4 years after interstitial radiotherapy. The patient of the second case was died 1 year 5 months later after interstitial radiotherapy because of the contralateral neck node metastasis.
These results suggested a course of interstitial radiotherapy and radical neck dissection followed by postoperative radiotherapy were effective for the treatment of advanced tongue cancers but the effect of some factors of total dose, field size and so on need further to be determined for maximum control of the tumors with a minimum of complications.