More Is Not Better When It Comes to Treating Rectal Cancer With Multimodal Chemoradiation Beyond the Standard Radiation Dose of 5040 cGy.

Background: Radiation dose schedules for neoadjuvant chemoradiation for rectal cancers differ, with the most common dose schedule using 5040 cGy in 28 fractions.

Objectives: The aim of this retrospective study was to assess the benefit of higher radiation doses beyond 5040 cGy in the context of pathological response and follow-up events.

Setting: The database from a provincial tertiary cancer center in Canada was the source of information for this study.

Estimating prognosis at the time of repeat whole brain radiation therapy for multiple brain metastases: The reirradiation score.

Purpose: Whole brain radiation therapy (WBRT) remains the standard of care for patients with multiple brain metastases, but more than half of treated patients will develop intracranial progression. Because there is no clear consensus on the optimal therapeutic approach, a prognostic index would be helpful to guide treatment options at progression. We explored whether the recursive partitioning analysis (RPA) score prior to repeat WBRT is predictive of survival.