Respiratory-gated bilateral pulmonary radiotherapy for Ewing's sarcoma and nephroblastoma in children and young adults: Dosimetric and clinical feasibility studies

Purpose Bilateral pulmonary radiotherapy in children and young adults aims to reduce the recurrence of lung metastases. The radiation field includes liver tissue, which is sensitive to even low radiation doses. We investigated the feasibility of respiratory gating radiotherapy using voluntary deep inspiration breath hold and its toxicity in these patients. Patients and method A retrospective clinical review was conducted for all patients who had undergone bilateral pulmonary radiotherapy, with or without deep inspiration breath hold, treated in our institution between October 1999 and May 2012. A dosimetric study was conducted on seven consecutive children using 4D-scan data on free-breathing and a SpiroDyn’RX-system-scan on deep inspiration breath hold. A radiation treatment of 20 Gy was simulated. Results Concerning the clinical study, seven patients of mean age 11.9 years (range: 4.9–21.1 years) were treated with free-breathing and ten patients of mean age 15.6 years (range: 8.6–19.7 years) were treated with deep inspiration breath hold for mainly Ewing sarcoma and nephroblastoma. Within six months of radiotherapy, all patients experienced mild liver toxicity (grade 1 or 2 altered levels of alanine/aspartate aminotransferase [n = 8 of 9] or cholestasis [n = 1 of 9]), which resolved completely with no difference between deep inspiration breath hold and free-breathing technique. Over a median follow-up of 2.6 years (range: 0.1–9.3 years), four patients died from disease progression (mean 1.5 years post-radiotherapy [range: 1.1–1.6 years]) and three experienced grade III–V lung toxicity. Concerning the dosimetric study, the irradiated liver volume was significantly lower with deep inspiration breath hold than free-breathing, for each isodose (V5: 73.80% versus 86.74%, P Conclusions The dosimetric data of respiratory-gated bilateral pulmonary radiotherapy showed a significantly spare of normal liver tissue. Clinical data showed that this technique is feasible even in young children. However, no liver toxicity difference between deep inspiration breath hold and free-breathing was shown.