Radiation doses in modern breast cancer radiotherapy
We have developed a method called 'dose meta-analysis' to summarise modern doses in breast cancer radiotherapy, and their variation according to patient and tumour factors.
The main life-threatening risks from breast cancer radiotherapy are heart disease, lung cancer and oesophageal cancer. These risks increase according to heart radiation dose, lung dose and oesophageal dose respectively. We have performed dose meta-analyses of heart dose, lung dose and oesophageal dose from modern breast cancer radiotherapy. These have shown which breast cancer radiotherapy regimens have the lowest risks of heart disease (Taylor 2015) lung cancer (Aznar 2018) and oesophageal cancer (Duane 2021)
- Taylor CW, Wang Z, Macaulay E, Jagsi R, Darby SC. Exposure of the heart in breast cancer radiotherapy: A systematic review of heart doses published during 2003-2013. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 2015;93:845-53
- Aznar MC, Duane FK, Darby SC, Wang Z, Taylor CW. Exposure of the lungs in breast cancer radiotherapy: A systematic review of lung doses published 2010-2015. Radioth Oncol 2018;126:148-54.
- Duane FK, Kerr A, Wang Z, Darby SC, Ntentas G, Aznar MC, Taylor CW. Exposure of the oesophagus in breast cancer radiotherapy: A systematic review of oesophagus doses published 2010-2020. Radioth Oncol 2021;164:261-7
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