Lung: Tomotherapy
Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 11:25 pm
Discuss lung tomotherapy here.
Tomotherapy is an advanced form of the image modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). It is used to treat tumours in the different locations when surgery is not an option. We had a case when it was used to treat the multiple lung mets in one of our patients, there was a success - mets were reduced in size but the treatment was to harmful for the normal lung tissue and the patient died from the interstitial radiation pneumonia, as I remember she had quite a few treatments - may be it was overused?
There is a new relevant article is published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Vol 24, No 30 (October 20), 2006: pp. 4833-4839
Excessive Toxicity When Treating Central Tumors in a Phase II Study of Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy for Medically Inoperable Early-Stage Lung Cancer
with the conclusion :
This regimen should not be used for patients with tumors near the central airways due to excessive toxicity. I do not know if the radiosurgery is able to overcame this downside of the delivering the radiation to the lungs - it is delivered in one-two treatments but in a higher dose, if the deviation of the target is smaller comp. to the radiation therapy it should spare the healthy tissue as they would not need to add big margins to cover the target.