A prospective, comparative analysis of acute toxicity profile between three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (3DCRT) and intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) in locally advanced head and neck cancer patients

Introduction: The advances of modern radiotherapy have emerged with the development of conformal radiotherapy techniques, such as the three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (3DCRT) and intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT). We prospectively compared acute toxicities and treatment-compliance between IMRT and 3DCRT in patients with locally advanced head and neck carcinoma. Method: 80 patients were enrolled in this comparative prospective non-randomized study. Inclusion criteria were patients with locally advanced carcinoma of hypopharynx, oropharynx and larynx. 40 patients were treated with IMRT and 40 patients with 3DCRT to dose of 70 Gy in 35 fractions, along with concurrent cisplatin weekly chemotherapy. All patients were assessed weekly during chemoradiotherapy treatment and after 3 months of the treatment. Results: 15 patients (38.4%) versus 8 patients (20.51%) developed grade 3 mucositis in the 3DCRT and IMRT group respectively (p=