First Measurement: Proactive Immune Cell Sparing in Radiation Therapy.

Purpose: Radiation Therapy (RT) can modulate the immune system and generate anti-tumor T cells. However, this anti-tumor-activity is countered by radiation-induced immunosuppression (RIIS). Clinical advantages of proactively sparing RT dose to immune rich organs have not previously been evaluated.

Long-Term Adherence to Adjuvant Endocrine Therapy Following Various Radiotherapy Modalities in Early Stage Hormone Receptor Positive Breast Cancer.

Introduction: We compared the rates of long-term adjuvant endocrine therapy (AET) adherence after various radiation therapy (RT) modalities among patients with early stage breast cancer.

Materials And Methods: Medical records from patients with stage 0, I, or IIA (tumors ≤3 cm), hormone receptor (HR) positive breast cancer that received adjuvant radiation therapy (RT) from 2013 to 2015 at a single institution were retrospectively reviewed. All patients received breast conserving surgery (BCS) followed by adjuvant RT via one of the following modalities: whole breast radiotherapy (WBI), partial breast irradiation (PBI) with either external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) or fractionated intracavitary high-dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy, or single fraction HDR-brachytherapy intraoperative-radiation therapy (IORT).

Para-Aortic Nodal Radiation in the Definitive Management of Node-Positive Cervical Cancer.

Objectives: To investigate the safety and outcomes of elective para-aortic (PA) nodal irradiation utilizing modern treatment techniques for patients with node positive cervical cancer.

Methods: Patients with pelvic lymph node positive cervical cancer who received radiation were included. All patients received radiation therapy (RT) to either a traditional pelvic field or an extended field to electively cover the PA nodes.

8+ Year Performance of the Gamma Knife Perfexion/Icon Patient Positioning System and Possibilities for Preemptive Fault Detection Using Statistical Process Control.

Background: The large fractional doses, steep dose gradients, and small targets found in intracranial radiosurgery require extremely low beam delivery uncertainty. In the case of Gamma Knife radiosurgery (GKRS), this includes minimizing patient positioning system (PPS) positioning uncertainty. Existing QA techniques are recipe based, and feature point in time pass/fail tolerances.

Intracranial disease control for EGFR-mutant and ALK-rearranged lung cancer with large volume or symptomatic brain metastases.

Purpose/objective(s): Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) are commonly employed for patients with brain metastases from lung cancer and specific driver mutations. We sought to identify the correlation between intracranial tumor burden and outcomes in patients with brain metastases treated with TKIs.

Materials/methods: We identified and retrospectively reviewed cases of EGFR-mutant or ALK-rearranged lung cancer with brain metastases at any time during their cancer course.

Clinical Outcomes and Predictors of Lung Toxicity After Multiple Courses of Lung Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy for Early-Stage Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer.

Background: The clinical outcomes of multicourse lung stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) have yet to be validated in a prospective study, and there are a lack of data on allowable composite dosimetry.

Patients And Methods: Forty-four patients underwent multicourse lung SBRT for recurrent or metachronous NSCLC. The median biologically effective dose (BED) for the first course and subsequent courses were 132 and 100 Gy, respectively.

STAT RAD: Prospective Dose Escalation Clinical Trial of Single Fraction Scan-Plan-QA-Treat Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy for Painful Osseous Metastases.

Purpose: Radiation therapy is a well-established treatment for symptomatic bone metastases. Despite continued advances in both planning techniques and treatment delivery, the standard workflow has remained relatively unchanged, often requiring 1 to 3 weeks and resulting in patient inconvenience and delayed palliation. We developed an expedited method wherein computed tomography simulation, treatment planning, quality assurance, and treatment delivery are performed in 1 day.

Radiation-related Lymphopenia after Pelvic Nodal Irradiation for Prostate Cancer.

Purpose: Given the uncertainty with regard to the effectiveness of pelvic nodal irradiation (PNI) for prostate cancer, we aimed to determine whether patients with prostate cancer who are treated with PNI are at a higher risk of developing radiation-related lymphopenia (RRL).

Methods And Materials: The electronic charts of 886 consecutive patients treated with radiation therapy for prostate cancer between 2006 and 2018 at our institution were retrospectively analyzed. Qualifying patients were those with total lymphocyte counts within 1 year before and 3 to 24 months after the start of radiation therapy.

Highly accelerated, model-free diffusion tensor MRI reconstruction using neural networks.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop a neural network that accurately performs diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) reconstruction from highly accelerated scans.

Materials And Methods: This retrospective study was conducted using data acquired between 2013 and 2018 and was approved by the local institutional review board. DTI acquired in healthy volunteers (N = 10) was used to train a neural network, DiffNet, to reconstruct fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) maps from small subsets of acquired DTI data with between 3 and 20 diffusion-encoding directions.

Central neurocytoma: Clinical characteristics, patterns of care, and survival.

Purpose: To investigate clinical characteristics and patterns of care among patients with central neurocytomas in a large cohort of patients.

Methods: The National Cancer Database (NCDB) was queried to identify patients with biopsy confirmed neurocytoma from 2004 to 2015. Patterns of care were described and univariable and multivariable models were performed to investigate the impact of prognostic factors on overall survival.