High-dose-rate mold brachytherapy for mandibular gingival squamous cell carcinoma in outpatient setting – Initial case report

Brachytherapy is often used to treat oral cancer, as it generally yields a good outcome with little oral function loss. In particular, mold brachytherapy is ideally suited for superficial oral cases, such as cancers developing on the gingiva, palate, or buccal mucosa, with little to no bone involvement and thin tissue thickness. Mold brachytherapy including that at a high-dose-rate (HDR) is used to treat gingival cancer, though hospitalization is the typical treatment setting. Reported here are details of HDR mold brachytherapy performed in an outpatient setting for a mandibular gingival case of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). Mandibular gingival SCC in a 71-year-old man was treated as an outpatient using HDR mold brachytherapy (54 Gy in 9 fractions, 5 days). After receiving mold treatment for thirty months, there was no sign of recurrence or metastasis. To our knowledge, this is the first report of HDR mold brachytherapy in an outpatient setting for treating mandibular gingival cancer.