Radiation Oncology
Expert insights on radiation treatment planning, techniques, toxicity management, and multimodal cancer care.
Recent Discussions
What bowel constraints do you use when treating definitive bladder?
I often find a V60<10 cc bowel constraint too restrictive and challenging to meet without significant compromise of tumor coverage due to the aforementioned tendency of the bowel to sit atop the bladder dome, and requisite standard PTV margins.First and foremost, I obtain daily CBCT for these patien...
How would you treat patients with advanced head and neck cancer with involvement of upper mediastinal lymph nodes?
Depends on the extent and condition of the patient. For a healthy patient, limited upper mediastinum, I’d treat aggressively with chemoRT.
How do you manage grade 3 dermatitis during chemoradiation therapy for anal cancer?
This is a great question for this forum because management of skin toxicity is so dependent on personal and local experience. I’m interested to see what others have to say!At baseline: apply lotion such as radiaplex or aquaphor to skin, keep area clean, limit skin chafing by wearing loose fitting cl...
What is the optimal dose and fractionation of RT for a T2N0 laryngeal SCC?
Great question. The data for accelerated fractionation (AFX) vs. hyperfractionation (HFX) vs. standard fractionation for T2 is a bit difficult to parse.At a basic level, we all recognize that T2 larynx spans a range from pts just a bit larger than T1 TVC cases, who could expect >90% survival with RT...
How much subglottic extension from a primary glottic tumor would make you treat the regional lymph nodes?
This is a question that may be more complicated than it looks, though I recognize that Dr. @Dr. First Last has a wealth of experience in this area. The first issue is that the definition of the cranial extent of the subglottic region is not standardized. It can vary from just under the cord to 5 mm ...
Is there a role for a post-operative boost in a patient with rectal cancer who has a positive margin after total neoadjuvant chemo and chemoradiation therapy?
As is usually the case with questions of this sort there is not just a yes or no answer. First, we rarely use a postop boost as if we have concerns about the circumferential margin on our initial evaluation, we set up the patient for intraoperative RT. IORT has big advantages in giving a very high l...
Are any centers routinely using 55 Gy in 20 fractions with chemotherapy for definitive treatment of head and neck cancer following presentation of the HYPNO study?
I always think the most prudent approach is to wait for the final publication, and thus the peer-review process to be complete, before making widespread changes to my routine practice. The level of scrutiny an abstract goes through is very different than that of a manuscript in a high-quality journa...
Do you recommend a waiting period to conceive after prostate radiation?
Yes, I typically advise that men and their partner use contraception for at least 3-4 months after the last fraction of radiotherapy based on the fact that the maturation cycle of sperm is estimated at approximately 2- 2.5 months. I typically counsel men prior to treatment that there is a chance (bu...
What constraints do you use for SBRT near the renal vessels?
The FASTRACK II protocol (NCT02613819) prescribes 42 Gy in 3 fractions and does not have dose constraints for renal hilum/vascular trunk. I used Timmerman's constraint of 19.5 Gy for 15 cc and got away with a handful of patients.This QUANTEC paper in the red journal has a good discussion and data on...
How do you approach the adjuvant treatment of glioblastoma following up-front laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT)?
This is an emerging area with very limited information; there are no large prospective trials to adequately answer the question. The issues faced by a Radiation Oncologist include: 1. Interpretation of the post-op scan: what is the true GTV? This remains unclear; we include all enhancing abnormality...