Mortality after nasopharyngeal radium irradiation for eustachian tube dysfunction

Cause-specific mortality of 2,510 persons treated before 1965 by nasopharyngeal radium irradiation (average exposure, 1,200 mg/min), followed to 1985, was compared to that of 2,199 nonexposed comparison subjects. No excess was found for the exposed group in overall mortality, cancer mortality, or in mortality of cancer of specific sites. A marginal excess (p = .07) of malignancies of the lymphatic and hematopoietic system was noted in exposed males only. Only one brain cancer (0.2 per 10(4) person-years) was identified in the exposed group, and two (10.3 per 10(4) person-years) in the nonexposed group.