The risk for radiation-induced cancers has become increasingly important as patient survival following radiotherapy has increased due to the advent of new methods for early detection and advanced treatment. Attempts have been made to quantify the risk of cancer that may be associated with various treatment approaches, but the accuracy of predictions is rather low due to the influence of many confouding factors. It is the aim of this paper to investigate the impact of dose heterogeneity and inter-patient anatomical heterogeneity that may be encountered in a population of patients undergoing radiotheray and are thought to influence risk predictions. Dose volume histograms from patients treated with radiation for the carcinoma of the prostate have been used to calculate the risk for secondary malignancies using a competition dose-response model previously developed. Biologically-relevant parameters derived from clinical and experimental data have been used for the model. The results suggested that dose heterogeneity plays an important role in predicting the risk for secondary cancer and that it should be taken into account throught the use of dose volume histograms. Consequently, dose-response relationships derived for uniform relationships should be used with care to predict the risk for secondary malignancies in heterogeneously irradiated tissues. Inter-patient differences could lead to considerable uncertainties in the shape of the relationship between predicted risk and average tissue dose, as seen in epidemiological studies. They also lead to rather weak correlations between the risk for secondary malignancies and target volumes. The results stress the importance of taking into account the details of the clinical delivery of dose in radiotherapy plan evaluation or for retrospective analyses of the induction of secondary cancers. Nevertheless, the levels of risks are generally low and they could be regarded as teh price of success for the advances in the radiotherapy of the prostate.
The risk for radiation-induced cancers has become increasingly important as patient survival following radiotherapy has increased due to the advent of new methods for early detection and advanced treatment. Attempts have been made to quantify the risk of cancer that may be associated with various treatment approaches, but the accuracy of predictions is rather low due to the influence of many confounding factors. It is the aim of this paper to investigate the impact of dose heterogeneity and inter-patient anatomical heterogeneity that may be encountered in a population of patients undergoing radiotherapy and are thought to influence risk predictions. Dose volume histograms from patients treated with radiation for the carcinoma of the prostate have been used to calculate the risk for secondary malignancies using a competition dose-response model previously developed. Biologically-relevant parameters derived from clinical and experimental data have been used for the model. The results suggested that dose heterogeneity plays an important role in predicting the risk for secondary cancer and that it should be taken into account through the use of dose volume histograms. Consequently, dose-response relationships derived for uniform relationships should be used with care to predict the risk for secondary malignancies in heterogeneously irradiated tissues. Inter-patient differences could lead to considerable uncertainties in the shape of the relationship between predicted risk and average tissue dose, as seen in epidemiological studies. They also lead to rather weak correlations between the risk for secondary malignancies and target volumes. The results stress the importance of taking into account the details of the clinical delivery of dose in radiotherapy for treatment plan evaluation or for retrospective analyses of the induction of secondary cancers. Nevertheless, the levels of risks are generally low and they could be regarded as the price of success for the advances in the radiotherapy of the prostate.
The results have shown the complex interplay between the risk for secondary malignancies, the details of the treatment delivery, and the patient heterogeneity that may influence comparisons between the long-term effects of various treatment techniques. Nevertheless, absolute risk levels seem very small and comparable to mortality risks from surgical interventions, thus supporting the robustness of radiation therapy as a successful treatment modality for prostate carcinomas.
This pre-study is aimed to investigate the feasibility of a normoxic polyacrylamide gel (nPAG) dosimeter with implanted gold fiducials to evaluate the geometric precision, including setup correction strategies, in the delivery of hypofractionated treatments. For this purpose a phantom consisting of three parts was constructed: (1) the patient simulating volume, providing realistic scatter conditions and weight, (2) a bottle containing the active dosimetric volume and (3) the gold fiducials and the fiducial support structure. A 6.1 Gy prostate IMRT treatment was delivered to the phantom using the sliding-window technique. The phantom was positioned prior to the treatment using the implanted fiducials and kV on-board imaging. An overlay of the 95% isosurface of the TPS calculated dose distribution and the measured dose distribution using gel showed good agreement. The clinical target volume (CTV) was well centred inside the 95% isodose surface of the measured volume. It was shown for the evaluated case that the use of on-board imaging and integrated setup correction tools could be used to compensate for a deliberately introduced offset in CTV position. The study showed that MRI based nPAG gel dosimetry can be used to verify setup correction procedures using implanted gold fiducials.
Background and purpose: Studies on accelerated fractionation (AF) in head and neck cancer have shown increased local control and survival compared with conventional fractionation (CF), while others have been non-conclusive. In 1998 a national Swedish group decided to perform a randomised controlled clinical study of AF.
Materials and methods: Patients with verified squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity, oropharynx, larynx (except glottic T1-T2, N0) and hypopharynx were included. Patients with prior chemotherapy or surgery were excluded. Patients were randomised to either CF (2Gy/day, 5days/week for 7 weeks, total dose 68Gy) or to AF (1.1Gy+2.0Gy/day, 5days/week for 4.5weeks, total dose 68Gy). An extensive quality assurance protocol was followed throughout the study. The primary end point was loco-regional tumour control (LRC) at two years after treatment. RESULTS: The study was closed in 2006 when 750 patients had been randomised. Eighty-three percent of the patients had stages III-IV disease. Forty eight percent had oropharyngeal, 21% laryngeal, 17% hypopharyngeal and 14% oral cancers. There were no significant differences regarding overall survival (OS) or LRC between the two regimens. The OS at two years was 68% for AF and 67% for CF. The corresponding figures for LRC were 71% and 67%, respectively. There was a trend towards improved LRC for oral cancers treated (p=0.07) and for large tumours (T3-T4) (p=0.07) treated with AF. The AF group had significantly worse acute reactions, while there was no significant increase in late effects.
Conclusion: Overall the AF regimen did not prove to be more efficacious than CF. However, the trend towards improved results in AF for oral cancers needs to be further investigated.