Palliative irradiation of carcinomatous lumbosacral plexus neuropathy

Carcinomatous lumbosacral plexus neuropathy is a relatively rare occurrence, although it is frequently encountered in clinical oncologic practice. The value of radiotherapy for this neoplastic disease complication was assessed in 28 evaluable patients from two institutions between 1981 and 1984. In over half of the cases, the subjects were 40 to 60 years old and had carcinoma of the ano-rectosigmoid colon. The overall therapeutic subjective and objective response rates were 88.8 and 48.1%, respectively. The complete subjective response rate was 85.1% whereas the complete objective response rate was only 29.6%. From an evaluation of the various total dosage schedules employed, it appeared that a favorable (subjective/objective) treatment result was dependent upon a higher administered total dose of no less than 30 Gy.