An imrt technique to increase therapeutic ratio of breast irradiation in patients with early-stage left breast cancer: limiting second malignancies

Comparison between intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and 3D tangential beams technique used in patients with early-stage breast cancer who received breast-conserving therapy

“…This particularly concerns patients with early-stage breast cancer and refers to the risk of contralateral breast and lung cancers. 6 It should be pointed out that using IMRT involves more treatment fields and, in consequence, larger volume of critical organs is exposed to lower doses. Moreover, in the IMRT technique the number of monitor units is increased which can have an impact on incidence of cancers localized in critical organs.…”

“…The most often found complications in these patients are cardiac and pulmonary function disorders and development of second malignancies. [3][4][5][6] Cardiac complications may develop after 10 years following radiotherapy and they are most frequently observed in women with left-sided breast cancer. 2,[7][8][9][10][11][12] These complications cause a 30% increase in cardiovascular deaths after the period of 10 years following radiotherapy.…”

Dosimetric comparison of field in field intensity-modulated radiotherapy technique with conformal radiotherapy techniques in breast cancer

“…6,7,19 In recent years, there has been rapid improvement in the software and hardware of linear accelerators that has enabled the development of new techniques for treating breast cancer with radiation therapy. [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] The dose gradient can be decreased in the PTV with the use of new treatment techniques that enable lower doses in the SST. Because doses to the heart and lung are lower, fewer side effects are likely, which with the expected long-term survival is an important point.…”

“…These new techniques for breast radiotherapy are FiF, sliding window (sIMRT), direct aperture optimization-based (DAO-IMRT), and hybrid intensity-modulated radiotherapy (hybIMRT) techniques. [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] The MLC is used instead of wedges for these treatment techniques. When MLC is used, the dose scattered to the contralateral breast and other parts of the body decreases.…”

The feasibility study of using multiple partial volumetric‐modulated arcs therapy in early stage left‐sided breast cancer patients

“…These techniques have been shown to improve dose conformity to the target and minimize the high dose to critical organs 17 , 18 . However, common drawbacks of these advanced techniques include the extended time needed, higher monitor units of the beam delivery, (19) and an increased low‐dose bath area 13 , 14 , 17 , 20 . Volumetric‐modulated arc therapy (VMAT), (21) an improvement of the IMRT technique, was developed in 2008, and was named as RapidArc by Varian Medical Systems.…”