Browsing by Author "Tien H.-J."

Background: The outcome of postoperative high- and intermediate-risk oral cavity cancer (OCC) patients receiving helical tomotherapy (HT) remains limited. Materials and methods: Between November 2006 and November 2012, 53 postoperative high- and intermediate-risk OCC patients treated with HT were enrolled. Results: The 4-year locoregional, local, and regional control rates were 66%, 76.4%, and 94.3%, respectively. The 4-year locoregional control rates of oral tongue and buccal mucosa cancer were 88.3% and 37.1%, respectively (P=0.012). Eleven (20.8%) patients experienced locoregional failure. In-field failure occurred in six of 53 (11.3%) in the primary area and three of 53 (5.7%) in the regional lymph-node area. No marginal failure was noted. Two of 53 (3.8%) experienced out-of-field failure. The rates of grade 3 dermatitis, mucositis, and dysphagia were 11%, 34%, and 13%, respectively. No grade 3 xerostomia was noted. Grade 2 xerostomia was 33% at month 6 and declined to 0 at month 48. A rate of 56% of grade 2 trismus at month 6 was noted, and declined to around 30% after 2 years. No grade 3 trismus was noted after 2 years. Conclusion: HT as a postoperative modality provided satisfying results, especially for xerostomia and trismus, and was impressive in high- and intermediate-risk OCC patients receiving postoperative HT. ? 2014 Hsieh et al.

Background: To compare the differences in dose-volume data among coplanar intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT), noncoplanar IMRT, and helical tomotherapy (HT) among patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and portal vein thrombosis (PVT).Methods: Nine patients with unresectable HCC and PVT underwent step and shoot coplanar IMRT with intent to deliver 46 - 54 Gy to the tumor and portal vein. The volume of liver received 30Gy was set to keep less than 30% of whole normal liver (V30 < 30%). The mean dose to at least one side of kidney was kept below 23 Gy, and 50 Gy as for stomach. The maximum dose was kept below 47 Gy for spinal cord. Several parameters including mean hepatic dose, percent volume of normal liver with radiation dose at X Gy (Vx), uniformity index, conformal index, and doses to organs at risk were evaluated from the dose-volume histogram.Results: HT provided better uniformity for the planning-target volume dose coverage than both IMRT techniques. The noncoplanar IMRT technique reduces the V10 to normal liver with a statistically significant level as compared to HT. The constraints for the liver in the V30 for coplanar IMRT vs. noncoplanar IMRT vs. HT could be reconsidered as 21% vs. 17% vs. 17%, respectively. When delivering 50 Gy and 60-66 Gy to the tumor bed, the constraints of mean dose to the normal liver could be less than 20 Gy and 25 Gy, respectively.Conclusion: Noncoplanar IMRT and HT are potential techniques of radiation therapy for HCC patients with PVT. Constraints for the liver in IMRT and HT could be stricter than for 3DCRT. ? 2010 Hsieh et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

Background: 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and cisplatin (CDDP) are used to enhance radiotherapy (RT) effect for head and neck (HN) cancers. However, the effect of local RT on systemic chemotherapeutics remains unclear. Here, we evaluated the influence of HN irradiation on the pharmacokinetics (PK) of 5-FU and CDDP in rats as experimental model. Methods: The radiation dose distributions of HN cancer patients were determined for the low dose areas, which are generously deposited around the target volume. Two Gy and 0.5?Gy RT were selected. Single-fraction radiation was delivered to the HN of Sprague-Dawley rats. 5-FU at 100?mg/kg or CDDP at 5?mg/kg was intravenously infused 24?hours after radiation. Results: Radiation at 2?Gy reduced the area under the plasma concentration vs. time curve (AUC) of 5-FU and CDDP by 16% and 29% compared to non-irradiated controls, respectively. This was accompanied by incremental total plasma clearance values. Intriguingly, low dose radiation at 0.5?Gy resulted in a similar pharmacokinetic profile, with a 17% and 33% reduction in the AUC of 5-FU and CDDP, respectively. The changes in AUC of bile, which increases with RT, were opposite to AUC of plasma for both drugs. Conclusions: The local HN RT could modulate systemic PK of 5-FU and CDDP in rats. This unexpected RT-PK phenomena may provide a reference for adjustment of drug administration and is worthy of further investigation.Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov ID NCT01755585 and NCT01609114. ? 2013 Hsieh et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

Background: The purpose of this study was to compare the efficacy of intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and helical tomotherapy for endometrial cancer. Methods: Between November 1, 2006 and November 31, 2010, 31 patients with histologically confirmed endometrial cancer were enrolled. All enrolled patients received total abdominal hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy with adjuvant whole pelvic IMRT or helical tomotherapy. Results: The actuarial 3-year overall survival, disease-free survival, locoregional control, and distant metastasis-free rates for the IMRT and helical tomotherapy groups were 87.5% versus 100%, 91.7% versus 51.7%, 91.7% versus 83.3%, and 91.7% versus 51.7%, respectively. The conformal index and uniformity index for IMRT versus helical tomotherapy was 1.25 versus 1.17 (P = 0.04) and 1.08 versus 1.05 (P<0.01), respectively. Two of 31 patients with cervical stump failure were noted, one in the IMRT group and the other in the helical tomotherapy group. No acute or late grade 3 or 4 toxicities were noted, including proctitis, or genitourinary or gastrointestinal disturbances. Conclusion: Helical tomotherapy is as effective as IMRT and has better uniformity and conformal indices, and critical organ-sparing properties. Prospective clinical trials are needed to evaluate the comparative efficacy of IMRT versus helical tomotherapy. ? 2012 Hsieh et al, publisher and licensee Dove Medical Press Ltd.

Objectives: To evaluate the feasibility and optimal restricted angle of the complete-directional- complete block (CDCB) technique in helical tomotherapy (HT) by including regional nodal irradiation (RNI) with the internal mammary node (IMN) in left-sided breast cancer. Methods: Ten left-sided breast cancer patients treated with 50 Gy in 25 fractions were compared with five-field intensity-modulated radiation therapy (5F-IMRT) and six types of HT plans. In the HT plans, complete block (CB), organ-based directional block (OBDB) and CDCB with different restricted angles were used. Results: The conformity index (CI) between the CDCB0,10,15,20 and 5F-IMRT groups was similar. Compared to CB, OBDB and 5F-IMRT, CDCB20 resulted in a decreased ipsilateral mean lung dose. The low-dose region (V5) of the ipsilateral lung in OBDB (84.0%) was the highest among all techniques (p < 0.001). The mean dose of the heart in CB was significantly reduced (by 11.5-22.4%) compared with other techniques. The V30 of the heart in CDCB20 (1.9%) was significantly lower than that of CB, OBDB and 5F-IMRT. Compared to the mean dose of the left anterior descending (LAD) artery of 5F-IMRT (27.0 Gy), CDCB0, CDCB10, CDCB15, CDCB20 and OBDB reduced the mean dose effectively by 31.7%, 38.3%, 39.6%, 42.0 and 56.2%, respectively. Considering the parameters of the organs-at- risk (OARs), CDCB10,15,20 had higher expectative values than the other techniques (p = 0.01). Conclusions: HT with the CDCB technique is feasible for treating left-sided breast cancer patients. The CDCB10- 20 techniques not only achieved similar planning target volume coverage, homogeneity and dose conformity but also allowed better sparing of the heart and bilateral lungs. ? 2020 The Authors.

Background: We compared the outcome of patients who received non-image-guided intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) with those who received helical tomotherapy (HT), a daily image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT), after surgery for oral cavity cancer (OCC). Methods: During the period November 2006 to December 2013, a total of 152 postoperative OCC patients underwent either IMRT (n = 79) or daily IGRT (n = 73) 4 to 6 weeks after surgery. Patients in the IMRT group received 6 MV photon beams to 7 fields and those in the IGRT group received daily fractions of 1.8 or 2 Gy on five consecutive days. Results: Patients who received daily IGRT had higher 5-year overall survival than those who received IMRT (87 % versus 48 %, p = 0.015). The local progression-free survival rate was also higher in patients who received IGRT (85 % versus 58 %, p = 0.006). More patients in the IGRT group completed the package of overall treatment time in ? 13 weeks and completed their course of radiation therapy in ? 8 weeks than patients in the IMRT group (89 % versus 68 %, p = 0.002; 84 % versus 58 %, p = 0.001), respectively. The rate of local failure in the primary tumor area was 24.0 % in the IMRT group and 6.8 % in the IGRT group. Among patients with primary local failure, the marginal failure rate was 52.6 % in the IMRT group and 0 % in the IGRT group. Conclusions: For patients with locally advanced OCC, postoperative IGRT results in better overall survival, better local progression-free survival, less marginal failure and shorter overall treatment time than postoperative non-image-guided IMRT. ? 2016 Hsieh et al.

To develop magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) indicators to predict trismus outcome for post-operative oral cavity cancer patients who received adjuvant intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), 22 patients with oral cancer treated with IMRT were studied over a two-year period. Signal abnormality scores (SA scores) were computed from Likert-type ratings of the abnormalities of nine masticator structures and compared with the Mann-Whitney U-test and Kruskal-Wallis one-way ANOVA test between groups. Seventeen patients (77.3%) experienced different degrees of trismus during the two-year follow-up period. The SA score correlated with the trismus grade (r = 0.52, p<0.005). Patients having progressive trismus had higher mean doses of radiation to multiple structures, including the masticator and lateral pterygoid muscles, and the parotid gland (p<0.05). In addition, this group also had higher SA-masticator muscle dose product at 6 months and SA scores at 12 months (p<0.05). At the optimum cut-off points of 0.38 for the propensity score, the sensitivity was 100% and the specificity was 93% for predicting the prognosis of the trismus patients. The SA score, as determined using MRI, can reflect the radiation injury and correlate to trismus severity. Together with the radiation dose, it could serve as a useful biomarker to predict the outcome and guide the management of trismus following radiation therapy. ? 2014 Hsieh et al.

Aim: To review the experience and to evaluate the results of stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) via helical tomotherapy (HT), for the treatment of brachytherapy-unsuitable cervical cancer. Methods: Between September 1, 2008 to January 31, 2012, nine cervical cancer patients unsuitable for brachytherapy were enrolled. All of the patients received definitive whole pelvic radiotherapy with or without chemotherapy, followed by SBRT via HT. Results: The actuarial locoregional control rate at 3 years was 78%. The mean biological equivalent dose in 2-Gy fractions of the tumor, rectum, bladder, and intestines was 76.0 ± 7.3, 73.8 ± 13.2, 70.5 ± 10.0, and 43.1 ± 7.1, respectively. Only two had residual tumors after treatment, and the others were tumor-free. Two patients experienced grade 3 acute toxicity: one had diarrhea; and another experienced thrombocytopenia. There were no grade 3 or 4 subacute toxicities. Three patients suffered from manageable rectal bleeding in months 11, 14, and 25, respectively. One stage IVA patient experienced fistula formation in month 3. Conclusion: SBRT via HT provides the possibility for treatment of locally advanced cervical cancer in patients who are unsuitable for brachytherapy. Long-term follow up and enrollment of more such patients to receive SBRT via the HT technique are warranted. ? 2013 Hsieh et al, publisher and licensee Dove Medical Press Ltd.

To compare the outcomes of melphalan 200 mg/m2 (HDM200) and 8 Gy total marrow irradiation (TMI) delivered by helical tomotherapy plus melphalan 140 mg/m2 (HDM140 + TMI 8 Gy) in newly diagnosed symptomatic multiple myeloma (MM) Asian patients. Between 2007 and 2010, nine consecutive myeloma patients who were scheduled to undergo autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) were studied. The patients received three cycles of vincristine- adriamycin-dexamethasone (VAD) regimen as induction chemotherapy, and if they had a partial response, peripheral blood stem cells were collected by dexamethasone-etoposide-cyclophosphamide-cisplatin (DECP). In arm A, six patients received the HDM200. In arm B, three patients received HDM140 + TMI 8 Gy. In arm B, the neutropenic duration was slightly longer than in arm A (P = 0.048). However, hematologic recovery (except for neutrophils), transfusion requirement, median duration of hospitalization, and the dose of G-CSF were similar in both arms. The median duration of overall survival and event-free survival was similar in the two arms (P = 0.387). As a conditioning regiment, HDM140 + TMI 8 Gy provide another chance for MM Asian patients who were not feasible for HDM200. ? 2013 Shih-Chiang Lin et al.