Objective: To investigate the diagnosis and management on osteoradionecrosis (ORN) of skull base in the patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) after radiotherapy.
Methods: All patients (n = 15) diagnosed as NPC and ORN of skull base were studied on the clinical data, diagnosis and therapy.
Results: All the patients were found with foul odor, headache, bleeding and exposed necrotic bone. 9 patients were treated by surgery, among them 2 patients died of temporal lobe radionecrosis, and the survival time of remaining 7 patients was 2 to 7 years. 5 patients with extensive ORN and 1 patient with local ORN were treated by conservative methods, among them 3 died of nasopharyngeal bleeding and 1 died of respiratory and heart failure, survival time of the remaining 2 patients was 3 to 5 years.
Conclusions: ORN can be diagnosed by clinical characteristics, CT or MR, and endoscopic findings. Surgery is the best choice for ORN. The patients with extensive ORN or radiation-induced cranial neuropathy had poor prognosis. The most common causes of death were nasopharyngeal bleeding and exhaustion.