Preliminary clinical experience with intraoperative radiotherapy.

Intraoperative radiotherapy is the term applied to the irradiation of unresectable tumors, partially resectable tumors, and regional lymph nodes with external beam radiation at the time of surgical exposure. Since only one treatment is given at the time of surgery, one should consider the intraoperative technique as "boost" therapy which may allow us to raise the conventional external beam dose to the tumor by 50 to 100 percent. At Howard University Hospital and Cancer Research Center, seven advanced-stage cancer patients have been treated since 1976 with single doses of electron beam irradiation in the range of 1,300 to 2,000 rad. The preliminary evaluation of these patients has shown no serious acute radiation reactions.