Comparison of cervical esophagus dose-volumes for three radiotherapy techniques for head and neck cancer.

Purpose: This study compares the radiation dose-volume of the cervical esophagus during head and neck radiotherapy using three different techniques.

Methods: Treatment plans of 58 patients from 3/04 to 1/06 treated with bilateral head and neck radiotherapy were analyzed retrospectively. A comparison of the cervical esophagus dose with three-field 3D conformal RT (3DRT, n=34), whole-field IMRT (WF-IMRT, n=12), and half-beam IMRT (HB-IMRT, n=12) was performed.