Radiation treatment planning for bladder cancer: a comparison of cystogram localisation with computed tomography

A comparison has been made between the target volumes of radical radiotherapy treatment plans produced with the aid of marker cystograms, and target volumes derived from computed tomography (CT) scans in 60 patients with bladder cancer. This has demonstrated inadequacies of the cystograms due to the inability to delineate extravesical spread of tumour and, as many patients with bladder cancer had a significant residual urine, emptying the bladder by catheterisation may have given a false impression of the shape and size of the target volume. Analysis of the results showed that cystographic localisation resulted in serious underdosage of the tumour in 18% of patients and failure to include all the bladder in 37%. Conventionally produced target volumes showed potentially significant discrepancies in 85% of patients when compared with target volumes delineated by CT.