***Secondary cancer induction and fraction timing issues Flashcards
What 5 criteria must a cancer meet to be classified as a secondary cancer?
Occurs in locations irradiated by primary or secondary beams
Histology of second cancer is different from first - not a met
Latency period - typically a few years
Second tumour not present at RT
Patient does not have cancer prone syndrome
What is the radiation based cancer induction evidence?
Biolgical studies
A-bomb survivors
Patients expossed to diagnostic and therapeutic radiation
Occupationally exposed workers
What is the evidence for cancer induction by low doses of radiation?
ICRP 103 - assumes 5%/Sv
Biological effects of ionising radiation report VII - concludes linear no threshold model
UNSCEAR 2000 and 2006 reports
How is cancer induction risk expressed? What are the equations?
- Excess absolute risk per 10^4 person-years per Gy
EAR = Fraction of RT patients contracting cancer - Fraction of non-RT patients contracting cancer - Relative risk
RR = Fraction of RT patients contracting cancer / Fraction of non-RT patients contracting cancer - Excess relative risk
ERR = RR - 1
How should the linear no threshold approach be applied?
Sum dose distribution from different sources of radiation - apply organ specific coefficients - it is age and sex dependent
Apply a generalised risk coefficient of 5%/Sv
What does the linear exponential dose curve suggest?
Cell sterilisation can overtake cell cancer induction, reducing the response curve
Why might the linear exponential dose curve not be accurate?
Suggests the most likely location of secondary cancer is at the margins of treated areas and in IMRT low dose bath but this doesn’t correlate with RT patient data which suggests there is a plateau, potentially caused by cell repopulation
Why might A-bomb survivor data not be applicable for RT patients?
A-bomb data suggests only getting carcinoma whereas RT data suggests patients also get sarcomas
What is the organ equivalent dose?
For an inhomogeneous dose distribution the OED is the uniform dose with the same risk of radiation-induced cancer as the patient’s DVH
Why is OED good?
Accounts for dose response relationship for radiation-induced cancer in different organs - uses linear exponential dose risk model
What is the equation for OED?
OED = 1/N . sum(Di.e^(-alpha.Di))
How is the radiation induced cancer incidence rate at a uniform dose defined?
Iorg = Iorg,0 . OED
What 2 reasons contribute to IMRT treatments increasing the risk of second malignant neoplasms?
IMRT requires more fields so a larger volume is exposed to radiation
Out of field tissue is more exposed to leakage x-rays as IMRT requires 2 or 3 times as many MU
How is the integral dose for the IMRT dose bath?
Total energy deposited in the total irradiated volume of the patient: ID = m.D
For inhomogeneous dose distributions the total ID is the summed ID across all dose beams: ID = sum(Di.Vi)
What are concomitant doses?
All exposures within the course of RT other than treatment exposures. Include simulation, CT localisation, portal localisation, and verification images
They irradiate normal tissue outside the target volume or the intended path of the primary beam and therefore contribute to the potential detriment of the patient