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Updated: May 1, 2026
Voluntary Breath-hold Technique for Reducing Heart Dose in Left Breast Radiotherapy
Published on: July 3, 2014
Low-dose-area-constrained helical TomoTherapy-based whole breast radiotherapy and dosimetric comparison with
1Peking Union Medical College Hospital, No. 1 Shuaifuyuan, Dongcheng District, Beijing 100730, China.
Background And Purpose:
To present a novel helical TomoTherapy-based method for whole breast radiotherapy that has better dosimetry and also has acceptable low-dose regions for lungs, heart, and contralateral breast compared with tangential field-in-field IMRT (FIF-IMRT).
Material And Methods:
Ten patients with left-side breast cancer were planned with low-dose-area-constrained helical TomoTherapy (LDC-HT) and FIF-IMRT. Dosimetry was compared for all techniques.
Results:
Coverage of the whole breast was adequate with both techniques. Homogeneity index (HI) and conformity index (CI) were better with LDC-HT. LDC-HT showed dosimetry advantages over FIF-IMRT for ipsilateral lung and heart in not only high-dose levels but also in low-dose levels such as V(10 Gy) and V(5 Gy). For contralateral lung, both techniques can provide good protection, although the mean dose of LDC-HT is higher than that of FIF-IMRT.
Conclusions:
With LDC-HT, we obtained adequate target coverage, better HI and CI of target volume, better sparing of organs at risk, and acceptably low-dose areas compared with FIF-IMRT. LDC-HT could be a feasible method in whole breast radiotherapy. Clinical benefits of LDC-HT need further investigation.
