Protective effect of volumetric modulated arc therapy on heart and lung tissues in postoperative breast cancer patients
ZHU Dagao
LU Chunjing
WANG Junjie
HU Zhongyou
ZHANG Xianru
Abstract：Objective This study aimed to compare the protective effects of volumetric modulated arc therapy(VMAT)versus 3D conformal radiotherapy(3D-CRT)on cardiac and pulmonary tissues in postoperative radiotherapy for radical mastectomy.Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted on 118 radical mastectomy patients treated in the Department of Oncology,Tongling People's Hospital,from January 2022 to December 2024.Among them,60 patients received VMAT,and 58 received 3D-CRT.All patients were treated using a Varian Clinac IX accelerator with a uniform prescription dose of 50 Gy in 25 fractions.Results Dosimetric analysis revealed that the VMAT group significantly reduced cardiac mean dose,cardiac V20,and maximum dose to the left anterior descending artery(t=5.12,4.78,6.33,P<0.001),respectively.For pulmonary protection,the VMAT group showed superior ipsilateral lung V20,mean lung dose,and contralateral lung V5(t=5.89,4.67,3.98,P<0.001).Treatment efficiency improved significantly with VMAT and enhancing homogeneity index(HI)(t=5.78,4.56,P<0.001).Conclusion VMAT significantly reduces cardiac and pulmonary radiation exposure compared to 3D-CRT,which is recommended as the optimal radiotherapy strategy for radical mastectomy patients.
Keywords：breast cancerradical mastectomyvolumetric modulated arc therapy3D conformal radiotherapycardiac sparinglung sparing
Publication Date：2026-01-30
Online Publishing Date：2026-01-27(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：4( 25-28 )