New research was presented at ASTRO 2020, the virtual American Society for Radiation Oncology Annual Meeting, from October 24-28.
Previous research showed improvement in patient-reported outcomes at 5 weeks and 1 year with intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) over conventional four-field pelvic irradiation in patients with cervical or endometrial cancer, but clarity on the long-term impacts of postoperative IMRT in this patient population is lacking. In hopes of providing clarity, study investigators randomized patients with cervical cancer treated with either type III hysterectomy with intermediate- or high-risk features or type I/II hysterectomy necessitating adjuvant chemoradiation therapy to three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3D-CRT) or image-guided IMRT (IG-IMRT). Although disease control was similar in both groups, 4-year GI toxicity-free survival rates were 78% in the adjuvant IG-IMRT group and 57% in the 3D-CRT group. And while pelvic relapse-free survival rates did not differ significantly between the groups (IG-IMRT, 73%; 3D-CRT, 68%), grades 2 (hazard ratio [HR], 0.53) and 3 (HR, 0.23) GI toxicity rates were significantly reduced with IG-IMRT.
