Comparative study to evaluate dosimetric differences in patients of locally advanced carcinoma cervix undergoing intracavitary brachytherapy under two different anaesthesia techniques: an audit from a tertiary cancer centre in India.

Background: Carcinoma cervix is amongst the leading causes of mortality and morbidity in women population worldwide. High-dose-rate intracavitary brachytherapy (HDR-ICBT) post external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) is the standard of care in managing locally advanced stage cervical cancer patients. HDR-ICBT is generally performed under general anaesthesia (GA) in operation theatre (OT), but due to logistic reasons, sometimes, it becomes difficult to accommodate all patients under GA. Since prolonged overall treatment time (OTT) makes the results inferior, taking patients in day care setup under procedural sedation (PS) can be an effective alternative. In this audit, we tried to retrospectively analyse the dosimetric difference, if any, in patients who underwent ICBT at our centre, under either GA in OT or PS in day care.
Results: Thirty five patients were analysed 16/35 (45.71%) patients underwent HDR-ICBT under GA while 19/35 (54.28%) patients under PS. In both groups, a statistically significant difference was observed between the dose received by 0.1 cc as well as 2 cc of rectum (p < 0.05), while the bladder and sigmoid colon had comparable dosages.
Conclusion: Though our dosimetric analysis highlighted better rectal sparing in patients undergoing HDR-ICBT under GA when compared to patients under PS, PS can still be considered an effective alternative, especially in centres dealing with significant patient load. Further studies are required for firm conclusion.