Radiation Oncology
Expert insights on radiation treatment planning, techniques, toxicity management, and multimodal cancer care.
Recent Discussions
What do you tell patients that opt for HIFU for favorable intermediate risk prostate cancer over AS, RP, EBRT, or brachy?
There are currently no published trials that specifically address this question, which is a very good one.My general discussion is that ablation therapies (not specifically HIFU) will have less negative impact on quality of life factors such as preserving erectile function, avoiding urinary incontin...
What is your preferred second-line treatment for erectile dysfunction refractory to PDE5 inhibitors after radiation therapy for prostate cancer?
When PDE5i's fail after XRT for prostate cancer, my usual progression is to offer a duplex ultrasound to evaluate penile vascular integrity and to see if the response to Trimix is adequate and one that would be acceptable to the patient. If not, the other options would include VED and IPP.
What would be the approach for radiation treatment of a sarcoma of a finger?
The correct approach for definitive management is an amputation or perhaps, if possible, a digit-sparing resection with preoperative RT. As always, the crux with organ-sparing approaches is that we need to leave an organ that is both disease-free and functional, and I am skeptical that definitive-in...
How do you sequence radiation and capecitabine in breast cancer patients receiving adjuvant capecitabine for residual disease after neoadjuvant chemotherapy?
According to personal communication with Dr. Masakazu Toi (June 13, 2017), the corresponding author of the CREATE-X NEJM publication, radiotherapy was administered prior to capecitabine in the majority of cases on this study. It is worth noting that in CALGB 49907, a randomized trial comparing capec...
Would you consider offering salvage radiation to a patient with castrate resistant prostate cancer who has never had local therapy and has no evidence of lymph node or distant metastasis?
It's hard to give a great answer without knowing more information, such as the PSA, Gleason score, and T-stage at presentation, why he was treated with androgen deprivation alone up front, what AD he was treated with, how long he was under treatment before he became castrate resistant, and what is t...
Would you offer hippocampal sparing whole brain radiation for patients with brain metastases due to ES-SCLC?
Until we have built-in auto-segmentation, I find the RTOG contouring atlas very helpful for manual contouring of the hippocampus. I tend to use the lateral ventricle as my main landmark, and look for the circle of gray matter located medial to it. Once I've drawn a hippocampus, I'll look at it in th...
What is the preferred palliative regimen for elderly patients with rectal cancer who elect to forego surgery?
This is a question that comes up somewhat frequently and I don't believe really has a definitive answer. I myself have used multiple regimens in this situation. I think it really depends on the performance status and life expectancy of the particular patient. This is also a topic that may bring out ...
Can we use a linear accelerator to sterilize PPE?
Per FAQ's posted by ASTRO: "At this time, ASTRO does not recommend the use of clinical linear accelerators to sterilize PPE. While ionizing radiation is used for sterilization of blood and food products, this is achieved using industrial irradiators that use gamma irradiation at doses rates far grea...
What are best practices for radiation oncology patient and staff precautions with the COVID-19 pandemic?
COVID Update 1/30/21 Wow, it's been almost a year. Here are some updates from our practices at University of Maryland. We have successfully treated both PUIs and COVID+ patients at all of our practices. We have yet to have a patient to staff (or staff to patient) transmission. We do not break patien...
Are there select patients with rectal cancer where radiation field size reduction might be feasible?
Yes, however, how to select which patients could have a field size reduction is unknown. Such a field size reduction is probably even more acceptable in the era of total neoadjuvant therapy, however, this cannot be considered standard of care given the absence of trials evaluating such novel approac...