Despite the increasing use of the rectal balloon in prostate cancer radiotherapy, many issues still remain to be verified objectively including its positional reproducibility and relevance to treatment morbidity. We have developed a custom rectal balloon that has a scale indicating the depth of insertion and dilates symmetrically ensuring positional reproducibility. Fifty patients with prostate...

Introduction: Due to the effect of radiation on both the tumor and the surrounding normal tissues, the side effects of radiation in normal tissues are expected. One of the important complications in the head and neck radiotherapy is the doses reached to the larynx and spinal cord of patients with non-laryngeal head and neck tumors.   Materials and Methods: ...

The Radiation Therapy Oncology Group reported a maximum tolerated dose of 74 Gy for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC); however, it was unclear whether this dose could be safely administered to Asian patients due to differences in their physique compared to Western patients. We therefore conducted a modified Phase I trial to determine whether 70 Gy could be safely delivered to Chi...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study is to investigate the potential to reduce exposure of the contralateral hippocampus in radiotherapy for glioblastoma using volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT). METHODS Datasets of 27 patients who had received 3D conformal radiotherapy (3D-CRT) for glioblastoma with a prescribed dose of 60Gy in fractions of 2Gy were included in this planning study. VMAT...

BACKGROUND The choice of the optimal left ventricular (LV) pacing site remains an issue in patients requiring cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT). AIM This prospective study compared the outcome of patients paced at the most delayed LV region with that of patients paced at any other LV site. METHODS Forty-four patients with severe heart failure underwent three-dimensional (3D) echocardi...

Purpose: To estimate and compare normal tissue toxicity and secondary cancer (SC) risks from 3D conformal radiotherapy (3D CRT), arc radiotherapy (ART) and intensity modulated proton therapy (IMPT) for treatment of pediatric medulloblastoma (MB). The purpose was also to investigate the possibility of optimizing radiotherapy treatment with the aim of reducing normal tissue toxicity as well as th...

PURPOSE Radiation therapy for retroperitoneal sarcoma remains challenging because of proximity to surrounding organs at risk (OAR). We report the use of intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) in the treatment of retroperitoneal sarcomas to minimize dose to OAR while concurrently optimizing tumor dose coverage. PATIENTS AND METHODS From January 2000 to October 2002, 10 patients (average ...

In our study, we aimed to measure the dose exposed by fetus during three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (3D-CRT) and intensity-modulated (IMRT) treatment techniques in pregnant patients who had undergo due breast cancer with thermoluminescence dosimetry (TLD) compare these measurements planning system (TPS). 2.5 mm- thick computed tomography (CT) images of Alderson Rando phantom device were...

Cardiac resynchronization (CRT) has emerged as a highly beneficial alternative to patients with heart failure (HF), providing symptomatic improvement, reversing remodeling, and reducing mortality rates.1,2 Mitral regurgitation (MR) is an important pathological feature in cardiomyopathy, occurring in a fair proportion of patients with advanced HF and probably inducing additional adverse ventricu...

BACKGROUND Breast cancers are more frequently diagnosed at an early stage and currently have improved long term outcomes. Late normal tissue complications induced by adjuvant radiotherapy like secondary cancers or cardiomyopathy must now be avoided at all cost. Several new breast radiotherapy techniques have been developed and this work aims at comparing the scatter doses of internal organs for...