Peripheral Doses from Noncoplanar IMRT for Pediatric Radiation Therapy

The use of noncoplanar intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) might result in better sparing of some critical organs because of a higher degree of freedom in beam angle optimization. However, this can lead to a potential increase in peripheral dose compared with coplanar IMRT. The peripheral dose from noncoplanar IMRT has not been previously quantified. This study examines the peripheral dose from noncoplanar IMRT compared with coplanar IMRT for pediatric radiation therapy. Five cases with different pediatric malignancies in head and neck were planned with both coplanar and noncoplanar IMRT techniques. The plans were performed such that the tumor coverage, conformality, and dose uniformity were comparable for both techniques. To measure the peripheral doses of the 2 techniques, thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLD) were placed in 10 different organs of a 5-year-old pediatric anthropomorphic phantom. With the use of noncoplanar beams, the peripheral doses to the spinal cord, bone marrow, lung, and breast were found to be 1.8-2.5 times of those using the coplanar technique. This is mainly because of the additional internal scatter dose from the noncoplanar beams. Although the use of noncoplanar technique can result in better sparing of certain organs such as the optic nerves, lens, or inner ears depending on how the beam angles were optimized on each patient, oncologists should be alert of the possibility of significantly increasing the peripheral doses to certain radiation-sensitive organs such as bone marrow and breast. This might increase the secondary cancer risk to patients at young age.