Cardiac doses with deep inspiration breath hold in breast cancer radiotherapy: direct comparison between WBI, PBI,...

The optimal radiotherapy technique for cardiac sparing in left-sided early breast cancer (EBC) is not clear. In this context, the aim of our dosimetric study was to compare cardiac and lung doses according to the type of radiotherapy - whole breast irradiation (WBI), external partial breast irradiation (PBI), and multicatheter interstitial brachytherapy-accelerated partial breast irradiation (MIB-APBI). The dosimetric results with the WBI and PBI were calculated with and without DIBH.

Dosimetric study of 23 patients treated with WBI, PBI, with and without DIBH, or MIB-APBI. The prescribed dose was 40 Gy in 15 fractions for WBI and PBI and 34 Gy in 10 fractions (bid) for MIB-APBI. Doses to the organs-at-risk (OAR) - heart, left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD), left ventricle (LV), and left lung - were recalculated to the equivalent dose in 2-Gy fractions (EQD2).

The addition of DIBH significantly reduced EQD2 doses to all OARs (except for the left lung maximal dose) in WBI and PBI. MHD values were 0.72 Gy for DIBH-WBI, 1.01 Gy for MIB-APBI and 0.24 Gy for DIBH-PBI. There were no significant differences in cardiac doses between WBI with DIBH and PBI without DIBH. DIBH-PBI resulted in significantly lower mean doses to all OARs (except for maximum lung dose) compared to MIB-APBI. Conclusions: These results show that the use of DIBH significantly reduces cardiac doses in patients with left EBC. Partial irradiation techniques (PBI, MIB-APBI) significantly reduced cardiac doses due to the smaller clinical target volume. The best results were obtained with DIBH-PBI.