Treatment planning for the breast patient: with or without lung correction?

Patients who have undergone a surgical lumpectomy for breast cancer are routinely referred to our clinic for a course of radiation therapy. This treatment consists of a pair of obliquely opposing radiation fields that encompass the breast and underlying structures. In order to treat the chest wall, a portion of lung must be included in this target volume, as breast tumours can invade the underlying chest wall due to direct invasion, blood invasion, or lymphatic permeation.

The use of a personal computer in the workload management of a dosimetry section.

A method has been devised using an electronic spreadsheet that will shorten the data processing time and give a printed report of the results. It provides an accurate conversion of raw data to final data.

A head swivel technique for breast tangents.

Two of the major problems with treating breast tangents are the difficulties in simulating the treatment and the reproducibility of the setup on a day to day basis. This paper describes a simple technique which takes advantage of the head swivel capability of certain cobalt-60 units to allow simulation and treatment of the breast and chest wall based upon a setup at the field edges which are normally not on mobile breast tissue. The technique offers some of the advantages of half block techniques but does not require the use of half blocks or bridges.