MONDAY, April 7, 2025 (HealthDay News) — For patients with head and neck cancer (HNC), the incidence of radiotherapy-induced otitis media with effusion (RTOME) is associated with cancer type and radiation exposure to specific regions, according to a study published online March 29 in the Ear, Nose & Throat Journal.

Zhijin Han, from the Peking Union Medical College and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences in Beijing, and colleagues conducted a retrospective analysis of 1,046 patients with HNC who underwent radiotherapy between 2016 and 2023. The incidence of RTOME was examined across cancer types, and radiation exposure probabilities of different head and neck regions were compared for patients with and without RTOME.

The researchers found that the overall incidence of RTOME was 5.83 percent in patients with HNC. There was significant variation in incidence by cancer type, with the highest rate for nasopharyngeal carcinoma, followed by ocular and orbital cancers, nasal cavity and paranasal sinus cancer, oral cavity and oropharyngeal cancers, laryngeal and hypopharyngeal cancers, and thyroid cancers (17.40, 6.25, 4.35, 4.32, 0.32, and 0 percent, respectively). Significantly higher radiation exposure frequencies were exhibited by patients with versus those without RTOME in five anatomic regions: the skull base and intracranial, parotid and periauricular, nasal cavity and paranasal sinuses, nasopharynx, and parapharyngeal space.

“These findings have important clinical implications for radiotherapy planning and patient management,” the authors write.

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