Radiotherapy has long been advocated as an alternative treatment in early Dupuytren’s disease, however independent analysis of its use has not been carried out before.
In their paper “Radiotherapy in Dupuytren’s disease: a systematic review of the evidence” Kadhum M, Smock E, Khan A and Fleming A systematically review the evidence on the use of radiotherapy in Dupuytren’s disease.
Only six articles met a minimum set standard set by the team, five of which were retrospective cohort studies and one a randomized controlled study. This led to a total of 770 patients with Dupuytren’s of the hands, nearly all with Tubiana stage 0-1 disease, were irradiated with an average 30 Gy. Disease regression ranged from 0%-56%, stability from 14%-98% and progression from 2%-86%. Salvage surgery was successful in all cases of disease progression post-radiotherapy. There were no reports of adverse wound healing problems associated with such surgery or radiotherapy-associated malignancy.
This Xstrahl In Action was adapted from a article found on a National Library of Medicine website.
