Kotecha Analyzes Use of 45 Gy Novel Radiotherapy in CNS Cancers

Rupesh Kotecha, MD, chief of Radiosurgery and director of Central Nervous System Metastasis with Baptist Health Miami Cancer Institute, discusses results of an analysis which centered around the use of pulse reduced dose rate intensity-modulated radiotherapy in patients with central nervous system malignancies.

The study assessed 18 patients with CNS malignancies who were treated with 45 Gy of pulse reduced dose rate intensity-modulated radiation. Findings showed that the median progression-free survival with the novel radiation modality was 6.3 months (95% Cl, 0.9-11.6 months), and the median overall survival was 8.6 months (95% Cl, 4.9-12.3 months).

Kotecha notes that these overall findings were in line with what has been published in prior research.

TRANSCRIPTION:

0:08 | Our study looked at 18 patients with recurrent primary CNS tumors that were treated at our institution over a 4-year period, and the median dose of radiation therapy in our series was 45 Gy…But then that cumulative dose of radiation when we incorporate the prioritization that those patients have had is over 100 Gy in this series, it's a very high dose of radiation. Even with that our toxicity rates are very modest in this patient population.

0:48 | We saw that the median progression-free survival was 6.3 months. Now going back to that systematic review of the literature that we performed, we also looked at the outcomes across the 5 studies that have been published in the literature to date on this same topic. It was a limited series, but at least in pooled analyses. The median progression-free survival across the literature across these studies was 5.7 months. Overall, our results are basically in line with those that have been published. This gives us some idea of what are our baseline statistics or safety thresholds that we can determine as we think about newer techniques to build upon this.