Impact of Fractionation and Dose in a Multivariate Model for Radiation-Induced Chest Wall Pain.

Purpose: To determine the role of patient/tumor characteristics, radiation dose, and fractionation using the linear-quadratic (LQ) model to predict stereotactic body radiation therapy-induced grade ≥ 2 chest wall pain (CWP2) in a larger series and develop clinically useful constraints for patients treated with different fraction numbers.

Methods And Materials: A total of 316 lung tumors in 295 patients were treated with stereotactic body radiation therapy in 3 to 5 fractions to 39 to 60 Gy. Absolute dose-absolute volume chest wall (CW) histograms were acquired.