Assessment of testicular dose during preoperative radiotherapy for rectal cancer

Radiotherapy (RT) for rectal cancer can have adverse effects on testicular function resulting in azoospermia and low testosterone levels. Variability of testicular dose (TD) due to differences in position of testes has been assessed with scrotal dosimeters and resulted in substantial variability of delivered TD. The aim of this study was to estimate planned and delivered TD using a treatment planning system (TPS).

In 101 men treated with RT for rectal cancer the cumulative mean TD (mTD) was calculated by TPS based on plan-computed tomography (CT) to evaluate the effect of different predictors on planned TD. The delivered TD was estimated by TPS based on repeated cone-beam CTs in 32 of 101 men to assess within-person variability of planned and delivered TD in a longitudinal analysis.

The median planned mTD for short course RT was 0.57 Gy (range 0.06-14.37 Gy) and 0.81 Gy (range 0.36-10.80 Gy) for long course RT. The median planned mTD was similar to the median delivered mTD in the 32 men analysed over the entire course of RT (p=0.84). The mTD did not change significantly over time of planning and delivering RT. The variation in proximity between testes and planning target volume (PTV) was related to within-person variability of mTD in men on the 50th and 75th percentile of mTD and as expected the absolute difference between planned and delivered mTD increased with higher mTD.

Testicular doses calculated based on plan-CT are an accurate estimation of delivered TD based on repeated cone beam (CB)CT. The within-person variability of TD is related to variation in proximity between testes and PTV in men with moderate to high TD.