Healthcare Professionals
Radiotherapy
- Radiotherapy is gaining importance as a adjuvant therapy to prevent recurrence of cancer after surgery and to eliminate the cancer cells that may be left behind after surgery.
- It is particularly recommended in patients with positive resection margins, a dose of 50 Gy in 1.8-2.0 Gy daily, five cycles weekly is the usual therapy.12
- Post surgery EBRT is increasingly practiced and the irradiated area may be localised by clips placed during surgery to reduce the volume of irradiation and decrease toxicities.
- With advances in technology in the last two decades, advanced machines are now available to deliver 3D conformal and intensity modulated radiotherapy, image guided radiotherapy (IGRT) etc. These newer techniques have great potential in delivering high doses of radiation to the tumor and at the same time reduce doses to surrounding organs like liver, duodenum, spinal cord etc.
- Intra operative radiotherapy (IORT) facilitates delivery of high dose of radiation to the affected area after resection. The neighboring tissues are least affected as it is possible to hold the healthy organs away from the radiation area.
- Some studies have reported that pre- operative RT and IORT increase the survival time and reduce the incidence of loco-regional tumor recurrence in pancreaticoduodenectomy.
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