Outcomes After Salvage Radiation Therapy for Recurrent Endometrial Cancer in Patients With No Prior Adjuvant Therapy: An Institutional Review.

Purpose: After definitive surgery, women with early-stage, low-risk endometrial cancer are observed. However, some will require salvage radiation therapy for recurrence. The purpose of this study was to evaluate our experience using salvage radiation for recurrent endometrial cancer in patients who did not receive upfront adjuvant therapy.

Deep convolutional neural networks for automatic segmentation of thoracic organs-at-risk in radiation oncology - use of non-domain transfer learning.

Purpose: Segmentation of organs-at-risk (OARs) is an essential component of the radiation oncology workflow. Commonly segmented thoracic OARs include the heart, esophagus, spinal cord, and lungs. This study evaluated a convolutional neural network (CNN) for automatic segmentation of these OARs.

Role of T0 status in overall survival for unresectable stage III non-small cell lung cancer: A NCDB analysis.

Objectives: Occult primary non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with mediastinal involvement is a known but rare clinical condition. Very limited retrospective data are available in the literature. Its prognosis and response to systemic chemotherapy have not been investigated with large scale data.

The Cost-Effectiveness and Value Proposition of Brachytherapy.

Brachytherapy is an effective treatment modality for a wide range of malignancies. However, brachytherapy utilization for both prostate and gynecologic malignancies has significantly declined over the last 20 years in favor of external beam radiation techniques. The cause of this decline is multifactorial, with logistical challenges, lower reimbursement, and inadequate training contributing to the preference of many radiation oncologists to more frequently recommend external beam radiation therapy.

How many lymph nodes are enough?-defining the extent of lymph node dissection in stage I-III gastric cancer using the National Cancer Database.

Background: Surgical resection with lymph node dissection is the primary therapeutic modality for gastric cancer. National Cancer Database (NCDB) was used to determine the extent of lymph nodes (LNs) dissection for gastric cancer.

Methods: The NCDB was queried from 2004-2013 for patients with margin-negative, invasive resected gastric cancer.

Cost-effectiveness of prostate boost with high-dose-rate brachytherapy versus intensity-modulated radiation therapy in the treatment of intermediate-high risk prostate cancer.

Purpose: The recently published ASCENDE-RT randomized clinical trial demonstrated improved biochemical control, albeit with increased toxicity, for a prostate boost with brachytherapy versus external beam radiation therapy alone in patients with intermediate-high risk prostate cancer. In this study, we investigated the cost-effectiveness of these two modalities in the treatment of intermediate-high risk prostate cancer.

Methods And Materials: A multistate Markov model was created to model a patient with intermediate-high risk prostate cancer.

Trends in Medicare Reimbursement and Work Relative Value Unit Production in Radiation Oncology.

Purpose: Medicare payments to individual physicians are released annually by the CMS. The purpose of this study is to analyze trends in Medicare reimbursement and work relative value unit (wRVU) production to radiation oncologists.

Materials And Methods: The Medicare Physician Supplier and Other Provider Public Use File and the CMS Physician Fee Schedule Relative Value Files (to calculate wRVUs) for the calendar years 2012 to 2015 were used in this analysis.

Improved Survival With Increased Time-To-Radiation and Sequential Chemotherapy After Surgery for pN2 Non-Small-cell Lung Cancer.

Background: Currently, the ideal timing for postoperative radiotherapy (PORT) and chemotherapy is unknown. The present study evaluated their relative timing on overall survival (OS) using the National Cancer Database (NCDB).

Materials And Methods: The NCDB was queried for patients from 2004 to 2012 with resected non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), pathologically involved N2 (pN2) nodes, and negative margins.

Variations in Medicare Reimbursement in Radiation Oncology: An Analysis of the Medicare Provider Utilization and Payment Data Set.

Purpose: The purposes of this study were to summarize recently published data on Medicare reimbursement to individual radiation oncologists and to identify the causes of variation in Medicare reimbursement in radiation oncology.

Methods And Materials: The Medicare Provider Utilization and Payment Data: Physician and Other Supplier Public Use File (POSPUF), which details nearly all services provided by radiation oncologists in 2012, was used for this study. The data were filtered and analyzed by physician and by billing code.

Stereotactic body radiation therapy for stage I non-small cell lung cancer: a small academic hospital experience.

Purpose/objective(s): Stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) has been shown to have increased local control and overall survival relative to conventional external beam radiation therapy in patients with medically inoperable stage I non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Excellent rates of local control have been demonstrated both in clinical trials and in single-center studies at large academic institutions. However, there is limited data on the experiences of small academic hospitals with SBRT for stage I NSCLC.

Prostate-specific antigen bounce following stereotactic body radiation therapy for prostate cancer.

Introduction: Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) bounce after brachytherapy has been well-documented. This phenomenon has also been identified in patients undergoing stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT). While the parameters that predict PSA bounce have been extensively studied in prostate brachytherapy patients, this study is the first to analyze the clinical and pathologic predictors of PSA bounce in prostate SBRT patients.

Extraskeletal Osteosarcoma: An International Rare Cancer Network Study.

Objectives: To report characteristics, treatment, and outcomes for an international cohort of patients with extraskeletal osteosarcoma (ESOS).

Materials And Methods: Through the Rare Cancer Network, retrospective data on patients with ESOS were collected. Patient characteristics, multimodality treatment information, and survival status were analyzed.

Prognostic value of metabolic tumor volume and total lesion glycolysis from ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT in patients undergoing stereotactic body radiation therapy for stage I non-small-cell lung cancer.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the prognostic value of pretreatment F-fluorodeoxyglucose PET/computed tomography (CT), particularly in the assessment of metabolic tumor burden markers such as metabolic tumor volume (MTV) and total lesion glycolysis (TLG), with respect to clinical outcomes in stage I non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients undergoing stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT).

Methods: This retrospective study evaluated 50 patients who underwent SBRT for stage I NSCLC from May 2007 to December 2012. The maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax), average SUV (SUVavg), MTV, and TLG were measured from the PET/CT scan.