Dosimetric comparison of helical tomo-therapy and standard three-dimensional conformations radiotherapy within the frame of the treatment of a left breast cancer

The use of intensity-modulated conformational radiotherapy (IMRT) resulted in a reduction of early side effects for patients treated by total mammary irradiation. Helical tomo-therapy uses a great number of circumferential beams which are modulated by an ultra-fast multi-blade collimator to deliver an IMRT with a high dose gradient. However, the use of this technique has been limited for the treatment of breast cancer because of the increased treatment duration and of the increase of low doses for organs at risk. The authors describe a simple technique to irradiate in a conformational and homogeneous way the whole mammary target volume while reducing the dose delivered to organs at risk. They discuss the results obtained during eight treatments of patients suffering from a left breast cancer. Short communication