The Deep Inspiration Breath-Hold Technique May Be a Win-Win Option for the Treatment of Patients in Node-Positive Early Left-Sided Breast Cancer

Reply to Y. Lu et al and E. Hindié et al

“…Lu et al 2 asked that we report the treatment techniques applied in the DBCG-IMN. These have been published in detail earlier and are referred to in the 15-year update.…”

“…In a comment on our recent work published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology , 1 Lu et al 2 suggested using deep inspiration breath hold techniques to minimize cardiac dose when delivering left-sided internal mammary node irradiation (IMNI). We agree that with today's advanced possibilities for cardiac dose-sparing in breast cancer radiotherapy planning, care should be taken to avoid unnecessary radiation dose to the heart—regardless of cancer laterality.…”