Topics:
Breast Cancer • Radiation Oncology
What is your practice for the use of bolus in patients with breast cancer who had mastectomy and expander placement?
What technique/schedule/material?
Answer from: Radiation Oncologist at Community Practice
We still treat with bolus on these patients (0.3cm QOD for first 10 days), however, a retrospective review was published in the Red Journal recently that is interesting.In this review, >1500 patients were treated with bolus, 318 had no bolus (basically, half of the reconstructed patients). T...
Sign in or Register to read more
Answer from: Radiation Oncologist at Academic Institution
We use a custom aquaplast bolus daily, which is about 3mm equivalent. If that's not available, 5mm qod. However, if the indication of PMRT is mostly nodes and the primary was small and removed without adverse features then I skip bolus. Like Dr. @Simul Parikh mentioned, it's unclear if bolus does mo...
Answer from: Radiation Oncologist at Academic Institution
We typically use bolus in these cases. For standard fractionation (50/25), we use bolus for the 1st 13 fractions and then remove for last 12 fractions over the chest wall.
Comments
Radiation Oncologist at CCare
What kind of bolus? Do you use 3mm or 5mm?
What kind of bolus? Do you use 3mm or 5mm?
Radiation Oncologist at Cleveland Clinic
5 mm.
5 mm.