Posters— Radiation Oncology

POTENTIAL IMPACT OF HIGH TECHNOLOGY RADIATION TREATMENT FOR SARCOMAS TO IMPROVE PATIENT OUTCOME

Herman Suit, Karen Doppke, Jong Kung, J. Michael Collier, Ira Spiro and Thomas Delaney (Department of Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA)

The available radiation treatment techniques employed in the management of the mesenchymal tumors cause substantial quantities of non-involved tissues/struc-tures to receive important dose levels. The consequence is that there is a non-negligible frequency of treatment associated morbidity. This is in the form of: excess fibrosis, wound healing delay or breakdown, late appearing damage in major nerves and vessels, pathological fracture and the rare radiation induced malignant neoplasm. There are several new techniques, which will achieve full coverage of the defined target tissue for each treatment session but with major reductions in the volume of normal tissues/structures included in the high dose volume. As complications of treatment can not develop in unirradiated tissues, there is predicted a major lowering of the frequency and severity of treatment related morbidity. These new techniques are principally intensity modulated X-ray therapy, intensity modulated proton beam therapy, on-line diagnostic quality imaging, Monte Carlo based dose calculations etc. The presentation will assess the impact of these developments on three relatively common clinical problems. These are lesions located in the: 1] medial proximal thigh, 2] thoracic vertebral body and 3] retroperitoneal region.