Radiat Oncol
-
To report the relapse and survival rates associated to treatment for patients with stage IC, grade 2 or grade 3 and IB grade 3 diseases considered high risk patients group for relapse. ⋯ In conclusion, our results showed that the stage IC, grade 2, 3 and IB grade 3 endometrial cancer was associated with significantly increased risk of distant relapse and endometrial carcinoma-related death independently of salvage treatment modality.
-
To investigate the potential of parotic gland sparing of intensity modulated radiotherapy (3D-c-IMRT) performed with metallic compensators for head and neck cancer in a clinical series by analysis of dose distributions and clinical measures. ⋯ 3D-c-IMRT using metallic compensators along with inverse calculation algorithm achieves sufficient parotid gland sparing in virtually all advanced head and neck cancers. Since the concept of lower single (and total) doses in the adjuvantly treated volumes reduces acute morbidity 3D-c-IMRT nicely meets demands of concurrent chemotherapy protocols.
-
Comparative Study
Dosimetric comparison of intensity-modulated, conformal, and four-field pelvic radiotherapy boost plans for gynecologic cancer: a retrospective planning study.
To evaluate intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) as an alternative to conformal radiotherapy (CRT) or 4-field box boost (4FB) in women with gynecologic malignancies who are unsuitable for brachytherapy for technical or medical reasons. ⋯ These results indicate that IMRT can improve target coverage and reduce dose to critical structures in gynecologic patients receiving an external beam radiotherapy boost. This dosimetric advantage will be integrated with other patient and treatment-specific factors, particularly internal tumor movement during fractionated radiotherapy, in the context of a future image-guided radiation therapy study.
-
Respiration-gated radiotherapy can permit the irradiation of smaller target volumes. 4DCT scans performed for routine treatment were retrospectively analyzed to establish the benefits of gating in stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). ⋯ Respiration-gated radiotherapy can reduce the risk of pulmonary toxicity but the benefits are particularly evident for tumors of the middle and lower lobes.
-
Patients with brain metastases represent a heterogeneous group where selection of the most appropriate treatment depends on many patient- and disease-related factors. Eventually, a considerable proportion of patients are treated with palliative approaches such as whole-brain radiotherapy. Whole-brain radiotherapy in combination with chemotherapy has recently gained increasing attention and is hoped to augment the palliative effect of whole-brain radiotherapy alone and to extend survival in certain subsets of patients with controlled extracranial disease and good performance status. ⋯ Because the blood-brain barrier is partially disrupted in most macroscopic metastases, systemically administered agents can gain access to such tumor sites. Our systematic literature review suggests that both chemotherapy and radiochemotherapy for newly diagnosed brain metastases need further critical evaluation before standard clinical implementation. A potential chemotherapy indication might exist as palliative option for patients who have progressive disease after radiotherapy.