Eliminating Complex Treatment Setup for Intact Breast or Postmastectomy Treatment with Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy

Intensity Modulation Radiation Therapy (IMRT) for intact breast or chest wall treatments has been controversial based on the results of recent studies. One study indicates that IMRT significantly reduces normal tissue dose and improves target dose distribution [1] while another suggests that IMRT offers no dosimetric advantages over existing three-dimensional treatment techniques [2]. However, these IMRT studies only considered tangential photon beam modulations for intact breast or chest wall treatment without taking into account the need to treat supraclavicular lymph nodes (SLN) and axillary lymph nodes (ALN). We carried out composite treatment plan comparisons between the standard conformal techniques and IMRT for the full-course treatments of intact breast (IB) or postmastectomy (PM) patients specifically to evaluate this issue.