Radiotherapy and oncology : journal of the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology
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To report acute and late toxicities in patients with intermediate- and high-risk prostate cancer treated with combined high-dose-rate brachytherapy (HDR-B) and intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). ⋯ Late grades 3 and 4GU toxicity occurred in 10.9% and 1.6% of the patients after HDR-B followed by IMRT in association with the irradiated urethral volume. The impact of V(120) on GU toxicity should be validated in further studies.
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High interstitial fluid pressure (IFP) in the primary tumor has been shown to promote metastasis in melanoma xenografts and to predict for poor survival in cervical cancer patients. The potential usefulness of gadolinium-diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (Gd-DTPA)-based dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) for assessing tumor IFP noninvasively was investigated in the present study. ⋯ DCE-MRI may be developed to be a useful noninvasive method for assessing IFP in tumors without necrosis. This possibility warrants further studies involving several physiologically different experimental tumor lines, as well as human tumors.
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To evaluate the efficiency of combining on-line and off-line corrections for the positioning of patients receiving external beam radiotherapy for prostate cancer. ⋯ The on-line procedure is feasible and significantly improves both systematic and random errors to below 1 mm with a limited impact on the workload and treatment time. The application of off-line setup corrections during pre-treatment patient positioning only marginally reduces the number of on-line setup corrections.
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Comparative Study
Comparison of various online IGRT strategies: The benefits of online treatment plan re-optimization.
To compare the dosimetric differences of various online IGRT strategies and to predict potential benefits of online re-optimization techniques in prostate cancer radiation treatments. ⋯ Online treatment plan re-optimization may significantly improve therapeutic ratio in prostate cancer treatments mostly due to the reduction of PTV margin. However, for low risk patient with only prostate involved, online target alignment IMRT treatment would achieve similar results as online re-planning. For all IGRT approaches, the delivered organ-at-risk doses may be significantly different from treatment planning prediction.
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Contribution of total body irradiation (TBI) to renal toxicity in children undergoing the bone marrow transplant (BMT) remains controversial. We report our institutional retrospective study that evaluates the frequency of acute and chronic renal dysfunction in children after using total body irradiation (TBI) conditioning regimens. ⋯ Our analysis validates high incidence of renal dysfunction in the pediatric BMT population. In contrast to other reports we did not find total body irradiation dose to be a risk factor for renal dysfunction. Future prospective studies are needed to assess risk factors and interventions for this serious toxicity in children following allogeneic BM.