Safty and acute toxicities of intraoperative electron radiotherapy for patients with abdominal tumors / 中华放射肿瘤学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the safety and acute toxicities of intraoperative electron radiotherapy for patients with abdominal tumors.Methods From May 2008 to August 2009, 52 patients with abdominal tumors were treated with intraoperative electron radiotherapy,including 14 patients with breast cancer,19 with pancreatic cancer,3 with cervical cancer, 4 with ovarian cancer, 6 with sarcoma, and 6 with other tumors.Fifteen patients were with recurrent tumors.The intraoperative radiotherapy was performed using Mobetron mobile electron accelerator, with total dose of 9 - 18 Gy.In all, 29, 4 and 19 patients received complete resection, palliative resection and surgical exploration, respectively.The complications during the operations and within 6 months after operations were graded according to Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events v3.0 (CTC 3.0).Results The median duration of surgery was 190 minutes.Intraoperative complications were observed in 5 patients, including 3 with hemorrhage, 1 with hypotension,and 1 with hypoxemia, all of which were treated conservatively.The median hospitalization time and time to take out stitches was 12 and 13 days, respectively.And the in-hospital mortality was 4% (2/52).Twentyfour patients suffered post-operative adverse events, including 3 postoperative infections.With a median follow-up time of 183 days, 20% of patients sufferred from grade 3 to 5 adverse events, with hematological toxicities being the most common complication, followed by bellyache.Grade 1 and 2 toxicities which were definitely associated with intraoperative radiotherapy was 28% and 4%, respectively.None of grade 3 to 5 complications were proved to be caused by intraoperative radiotherapy.Conclusions Intraoperative electron radiotherapy is well tolerable and could be widely used for patients with abdominal tumors, with a little longer time to take out stitches but without more morbidities and toxicities compared surgery alone.