The Management of Malignant Neo plastic Disease Involving the Maxillary Antrum: Report of Three Cases of Total Ablation of the Ethmoid Labyrinth

Abstract

The methods of management of neoplastic disease involving the maxillary antrum have fluctuated greatly during the past century. The surgical pendulum has swung from extreme radical operations with the scalpel and chisel, on the one hand, to conservative "cold surgery," electrosurgery, and irradiation delivered either pre-or postoperatively or both, and back again to pure "cold surgery."^1,7-12 The reasons for these wide changes in the same locale are diverse and important. Their influence on our methods has been as profound as elsewhere. Our precise controlled technique utilizing intensive preoperative irradiation followed by en masse removal of the condemned irradiated maxilla and collateral tissues has evolved during the past 20 years out of the shadows of past years' experience illuminated by the brilliance of all the many advances in pre- and postoperative care, anesthesia, etc. Historical Review At the Oncologic Hospital the management of malignancy involving the upper jaw prior to