Nuclear Medicine & Radiation Therapy

Feasibility and Outcome of Helical Tomotherapy for Irradiation in Pediatric Patients with Pineoblastoma

Abstract

Jose Luis Lopez Guerra, Maribel Bruna, Raul Matute, María José Ortiz and Ignacio Azinovic

Pineoblastoma is an extremely rare primary tumor occurring in the pineal gland and belongs to the supratentorial primitive neuroectodermal tumors [1,2]. Intensive multimodality treatment that combines surgery, craniospinal irradiation (CSI), and chemotherapy is needed for this uncommon disease. CSI still remains one of the most technically challenging processes in radiation therapy (RT) planning and delivery because of the need to irradiate a very large and complex shaped target volume uniformly. There is a growing concern regarding treatment-related side effects and is the clinical motivation for investigating sophisticated emerging RT techniques to reduce doses to non-target tissues to ameliorate toxicity [3]. Consequently, several strategies have been proposed to limit the radiation-induced toxicity, such as the use of helical tomotherapy (HT) [4,5].