The standard treatment for breast cancer is surgery followed by adjuvant breast radiation therapy in most cases. For left sided breast cancers, the heart dose delivered by the radiation treatment is often of particular concern. In order to spare the heart, different strategies are currently available, including active breathing control (ABC) and voluntary deep in inspiration breath hold (DIBH) (both strategies are currently being used at our centre). To perform accurate heart-sparing treatments, it is important to ensure that patients are positioned consistently. One available approach is through surface imaging which tracks the position of a portion of the skin surface, known as the AlignRT system (VisionRT Ltd, London, UK).
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
40
To review our institutional clinical experience of applying the AlignRT system to monitor patient setup and reproducibility when using ABC and DIBH techniques in the treatment of left-sided breast cancer patients.
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Reproducibility of ABC or vDIBH set-up as measured by Align RT.
Reproducibility of set-up will be evaluated by determining discrepancies in patient's surface between treatment and CT simulation which will be acquired with the Align RT system using multiple measures along with daily portal images during treatment and weekly CBCTs.
Time frame: 2 years
Mean heart dose as determined using Align RT.
Estimate the change in mean heart dose for each breath-hold/heart sparing strategy by: i. Converting differences in heart position on 2D portal images acquired during treatment to 3D volumes on Pinnacle plans. ii. Using the CBCT images (acquired weekly), to recalculate dose to heart based on the patient's position and anatomy that day.
Time frame: 2 years
The impact of Align RT with vDIBH as compared to vDIBH without AlignRT on quality of life as assessed by the EORTC core QoL questionnaire.
QoL will be assessed using the EORTC core QoL questionnaire (QLQ-C30) which is a well-validated and widely used QoL questionnaire available in multiple languages (12,13). QLQ-C30 is composed of 30 questions that represent 5 functional scales (physical, role, cognitive, emotional and social), 3 symptom scales (fatigue, nausea and vomiting, and pain), and a global health / QoL scale. The questionnaire will be completed by patients at time of radiation simulation as baseline, at completion of RT (during routine review) and at the 6-8 week follow-up.
Time frame: 2 years
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