Efficacy and the toxicity of the interstitial high-dose-rate brachytherapy in the management of recurrent keloids: 5-year outcomes

Purpose: Recurring keloids are a clinical challenge. Interdisciplinary treatments are required in most cases. Owing to the wide variety of concepts, the optimal treatment regime remains unclear. Our clinic established a protocol of perioperative interstitial high-dose-rate brachytherapy with three fractions of 6 Gy and achieved an excellent 2-year local control rate of 94% (In search of the optimal treatment of keloids: Report of a series and a review of the literature). This report is an update on our long-term results of prospective study. Twenty-nine patients were included with a median followup of 5 years.

Methods and materials: From 2009 to 2015, 29 patients with 37 recurrent keloids were treated with perioperative interstitial high-dose-rate brachytherapy; 3 patients had been previously treated with adjuvant external beam radiotherapy and presented with recurrences in the pretreated area. Brachytherapy was given in three fractions with a single dose of 6 Gy in 5-mm tissue depth and covered the scar in total length. Followup visits were scheduled at 6 weeks, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, and annually thereafter. Therapeutic outcome was assessed in terms of recurrence, acute and late complications, and cosmetic results.

Results: No procedure-related complications occurred. Improvement of keloid-related symptoms was noticed in all patients after treatment. After a median followup of 49.7 months (range: 7.9-91.9 months), three keloid recurrences and two hypertrophied scars were observed.

Conclusions: Our results suggest that brachytherapy may be advantageous in the management of high-risk keloids, even after failure of external beam radiotherapy and other treatment procedures. Our three-fraction treatment schedule reduces the treatment period to 2 days and is therefore convenient for the patients.