Case Report: Anaplastic Astrocytoma Treated with Postoperative Radiotherapy Using Flattening Filter-Free Volumetric Arc Therapy (FFF-VMAT) during Pregnancy—Acceptable Fetal Dosimetry

Background: Postoperative irradiation for brain tumor in pregnant women is a matter of concern. Aim: We aimed to assess the safety of radiotherapy for brain tumors in pregnancy. We here report a successful treatment for anaplastic astrocytoma during pregnancy: surgery + postoperative irradiation. We wish to emphasize how we devised irradiation procedure to achieve both therapeutic effectiveness and safety to the fetus/infant. Case Presentation: A 34-year-old pregnant woman suffered with brain anaplastic astrocytoma. Tumor resection under craniotomy was performed with success. We decided to conduct postoperative radiotherapy at 25 weeks of gestation to reduce the risk of recurrence. We used a flattening filter-free volumetric arc therapy (FFF-VMAT) technique, which can achieve lower out-of-field dose than VMAT with a flattening filter or helical tomotherapy. We prescribed 60 Gy over 30 fractions. During actual beam delivery, surface and rectal dose to the patient (mother) were measured. The total fetal dose was estimated at 0.006 - 0.018 Gy, which is under the threshold set by the ICRP. A male healthy infant was born vaginally at the 37th week of pregnancy. The patient (mother) and the infant are healthy at the time of writing. Conclusion: FFF-VMAT is a good choice for brain tumors during pregnancy.

Radiation pneumonitis after stereotactic radiation therapy for lung cancer

Stereotactic body radiation therapy(SBRT)has a locacontrol rate of 95%at 2 years for non-small cell lungcancer(NSCLC)and should improve the prognosis oinoperable patients,elderly patients,and patients withsignificant comorbidities who have early-stage NSCLCThe safety of SBRT is being confirmed in internationalmulti-institutional PhaseⅡtrials for peripheral lungcancer in both inoperable and operable patients,bureports so far have found that SBRT is a safe and effective treatment for early-stage NSCLC and early metastatic lung cancer.Radiation pneumonitis(RP)is oneof the most common toxicities of SBRT.Although mospost-treatment RP is Grade 1 or 2 and either asymptomatic or manageable,a few cases are severe,symptomatic,and there is a risk for mortality.The reportedrates of symptomatic RP after SBRT range from 9%to28%.Being able to predict the risk of RP after SBRT isextremely useful in treatment planning.A dose-effecrelationship has been demonstrated,but suggesteddose-volume factors like mean lung dose,lung V20and/or lung V2.5 differed among the reports.We foundthat patients who present with an interstitial pneumo-nitis shadow on computed tomography scan and high levels of serum Krebs von den Lungen-6 and surfactant protein D have a high rate of severe radiation pneumo-nitis after SBRT.At our institution,lung cancer patients with these risk factors have not received SBRT since 2006,and our rate of severe RP after SBRT has de-creased significantly since then.