Predicting grade 3 acute diarrhea during radiation therapy for rectal cancer using a cutoff-dose logistic regression normal tissue complication probability model.

Purpose: Understanding the dose-volume relationship of small bowel irradiation and severe acute diarrhea may help reduce the incidence of this side effect during adjuvant treatment for rectal cancer.
Methods and Materials: Consecutive patients treated curatively for rectal cancer were reviewed, and the maximum grade of acute diarrhea was determined. The small bowel was outlined on the treatment planning CT scan, and a dose-volume histogram was calculated for the initial pelvic treatment (45 Gy). Logistic regression models were fitted for varying cutoff-dose levels from 5 to 45 Gy in 5-Gy increments. The model with the highest LogLikelihood was used to develop a cutoff-dose normal tissue complication probability (NTCP) model.
Results: There were a total of 152 patients (48% preoperative, 47% postoperative, 5% other), predominantly treated prone (95%) with a three-field technique (94%) and a protracted venous infusion of 5-fluorouracil (78%). Acute Grade 3 diarrhea occurred in 21%. The largest LogLikelihood was found for the cutoff-dose logistic regression model with 15 Gy as the cutoff-dose, although the models for 20 Gy and 25 Gy had similar significance. According to this model, highly significant correlations (p <0.001) between small bowel volumes receiving at least 15 Gy and toxicity exist in the considered patient population. Similar findings applied to both the preoperatively (p = 0.001) and postoperatively irradiated groups (p = 0.001).
Conclusion: The incidence of Grade 3 diarrhea was significantly correlated with the volume of small bowel receiving at least 15 Gy using a cutoff-dose NTCP model.