Rectal complication after remote afterloading intracavitary therapy for carcinoma of the uterine cervix.

From August 1978 through December 1980, 119 patients of previously untreated carcinoma of the uterine cervix were treated using RALS, remote afterloading high dose rate intracavitary therapy at our department. The data from 92 out of 119 patients were available for analysis of rectal complication. The incidence of major rectal complications was only 2% (2/92). Uni- and multivariate analyses were used based on the external criterion variable of rectal complication which included even minor injuries. By using these methods, it was clearly indicated that these factors such as TDF of rectum, Z-coordinate of weighted geometric center (WGC-Z), the dose of whole pelvic irradiation, history of chemotherapy and Treponema pallidum hemoagglutination test (TPHA) were important for occurrence of rectal complication. According to discriminant score, 71 out of 92 cases (77%) could be correctly discriminated.