Tomotherapy

[Olga]

I just thought that I would mention the experience one of our members had with this treatment, because the record of it was lost on the old board.
We had a member with the multiple unresectable lung mets unresponsive to any systemic treatment. A few of the mets have been growing faster and needed to be addressed soon, there were to many/to bulky to do by the cryotherapy and the surgery was not considered. She was treated by the TomoTherapy - the dedicated radiation therapy unit that delivers image-guided intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). She had very good response from her lung mets with all the treated mets shrinking a lot and had very good relief in her breathing difficulties. Unfortunately, she developed radiation pneumonitis, it can occur as a side effect of radiation therapy for lung tumors and died from this complication. I guess there were to many tumors treated by this modality and lots of healthy tissue around the targets was damaged too. Radiation pneumonitis tends to show up 2 weeks to 6 months after the end of the treatment and has to be taken into the consideration of the treatment planning.