Histological changes in the cervical lymph nodes after radiotherapy.

Radiotherapy to the neck is frequently employed in the treatment of malignancies, sometimes alone and sometimes before or after surgery or with or without chemotherapy. We checked the histopathological changes in the neck after radiotherapy, dividing the changes into two groups. One with short-term changes between six months to one year, and the second group with long-term changes after more than six years. We compared these two groups with a control group without radiotherapy. The changes in the long-term group were more pronounced than in the short-term group, with more stromal fibrosis, vascular changes, and specially lymph nodes smaller than one centimeter. Thus, bigger lymph nodes (more then one centimeter) are more radiosensitive and become smaller after six years.