ESTRO 2024 - Abstract Book

S1805

Clinical - Lung

ESTRO 2024

3079

Digital Poster

Palliative radiotherapy for lung cancer : How do we relieve a symptom without inducing another ?

Mouna Ben Rejeb, Inès Mlayah, Rim Moujahed, Lilia Ghorbal, Lotfi Kochbati

Abderrahmane Mami Hospital, Radiation oncology, Tunis, Tunisia

Purpose/Objective:

Dysphagia is known to be a common complication of thoracic and mediastinal radiotherapy. This symptom can lead to treatment interruption, and in most severe cases, hospitalization.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the dose received by the esophagus during palliative radiotherapy for lung cancers and to investigate the correlation between the dose delivered to the esophagus and the occurrence of dysphagia.

Material/Methods:

We conducted a retrospective study involving the medical records of 50 patients who were treated between 2020 and 2023 for lung cancers. All patients received palliative radiotherapy for either symptoms such as pain and/or a tumoral compression of the spinal cord. None of the patients had dysphagia before the start of treatment. The dosimetric variables analyzed for the esophagus included the mean dose (Dmean), the maximum dose (Dmax), the D5cc, the V10Gy, the V20Gy, and the V30Gy. The data were collected from the patients' clinical records, during and after the end of treatment.

Results:

The median age was 64 years [43 -90 years]. Eighty percent of patients received radiotherapy at a dose of 20 Gy in 5 fractions, and 20% of patients received a dose of 30 Gy in 10 fractions. Sequential chemotherapy was administered in 90% of cases. Fourteen percent of patients experienced grade 1 dysphagia during treatment. After an average follow-up period of 3.8 months (ranging from 1 to 18 months), dysphagia was reported in 8% of cases. Fifty percent of these cases had grade 1 dysphagia, while the rest had grade 2 dysphagia. There was no grade 3 or above dysphagia.

The mean Dmean and Dmax in the esophagus were 9.37 Gy [0.8 -22.3 Gy] and 21.33 Gy [4.6- 31.7 Gy], respectively.