Radiation Therapy

Radical radiation therapy can be used for patients unable to tolerate surgery or when surgery is not an option because of the site or extent of disease.[10-13]

Groin lymph node metastases are present in approximately 20% to 35% of patients with tumors clinically confined to the vulva and with clinically negative nodes.[9,14] Lymph node dissection is traditionally part of the primary surgical therapy in all but the smallest tumors. Some investigators recommend radiation therapy as a means to avoid the morbidity of lymph node dissection, but it is not clear whether radiation therapy can achieve the same local control rates or survival rates as lymph node dissection in early-stage disease.