ISLAMABAD: Treating patients who have early stage lung cancer with radiotherapy can increase their risk of death from causes other than cancer, says a study.
In particular, they found that high doses to the left atrium of the heart and the superior vena cava had the strongest association and increased risk of non-cancer death.
"Our results show that even within a few years a radiation dose to the heart is associated with an increased risk of non-cancer death for early stage lung cancer patients, and they indicate which regions of the heart possibly play a role," said Barbara Stam from the Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam.
The researchers analysed data from 565 patients diagnosed with early stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) between 2006-2013 in five institutions in Europe and North America, who were treated with a type of radiotherapy called stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT), Medical Xpress reported.
SBRT is a specialised type of external beam radiation therapy that can focus radiation beams with extreme accuracy on a tumour, thereby minimising the effect on nearby organs.
With multiple organs nearby, minimising the dose to one organ is likely to result in a higher dose in another organ.
In order to work out how much radiation was delivered to which sub-structures of the heart, the researchers created a "template" image of the heart and its sub-structures on to which they could map the anatomy of each of the 565 patients -- a process called deformable image registration.
Radiotherapy for lung cancer patients is linked to increased risk of non-cancer deaths, the findings showed.
As a result of the new findings, researchers said they would be investigating ways to deliver radiotherapy while sparing the crucial heart structures as much as possible.
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