Is the Deep Inspiration Breath-Hold Technique Superior to the Free Breathing Technique in Cardiac and Lung Sparing while Treating both Left-Sided Post-Mastectomy Chest Wall and Supraclavicular Regions?

AIMS: To evaluate the efficacy of the deep inspirational breath-hold (DIBH) technique and its dosimetric advantages over the free breathing (FB) technique in cardiac (heart and left anterior descending artery [LAD]) and ipsilateral lung sparing in left-sided post-mastectomy field-in-field conformal radiotherapy. DIBH is highly reproducible, and this study aims to find out its dosimetric benefits over FB. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Nineteen left-sided mastectomy patients were immobilized using breast boards with both arms positioned above the head. All patients had 2 sets of planning CT images (one in FB and another in DIBH) with a Biograph TruePoint HD CT scanner in the same setup. DIBH was performed by tracking the respiratory cycles using a Varian Real-Time Position Management system. The target (chest wall and supraclavicular region), organs at risk (OARs; ipsilateral lung, contralateral lung, heart, LAD, and contralateral breast), and other organs of interests were delineated as per the RTOG (Radiation Therapy Oncology Group) contouring guidelines. The single-isocenter conformal fields in the field treatment plans were generated with the Eclipse Treatment Planning System (Varian Medical Systems) for both FB and DIBH images, and the doses to the target and OARs were compared. The standard fractionation regimen of 50 Gy in 25 fractions over a period of 5 weeks was used for all patients in this study. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The target coverage parameters (V95, V105, V107, and D<Sub>mean</Sub>) were found to be 97.8 ± 0.9, 6.1 ± 3.4, 0.2 ± 0.3, and 101.9 ± 0.5% in the FB plans and 98.1 ± 0.8, 6.1 ± 3.2, 0.2 ± 0.3, and 101.9 ± 0.4% in the DIBH plans, respectively. The plan quality indices (conformity index and homogeneity index) also showed 1.3 ± 0.2 and 0.1 for the FB plans and 1.2 ± 0.3 and 0.1 for the DIBH plans, respectively. There was a significant reduction in dose to the heart in the DIBH plans compared to the FB plans, with p values of nearly 0 for the V5, V10, V25, V30, and D<Sub>mean</Sub> dosimetric parameters. The difference in ipsilateral lung doses between FB and DIBH showed statistically significant p values, and the differences in mean doses were found to be 7, 15.7, 11.8, and 10.7% for V5, V20, V30, and D<Sub>mean</Sub>, respectively. There was a significant reduction in dose to the LAD in the DIBH compared to the FB plans. CONCLUSIONS: DIBH resulted in significant reductions in doses to the heart, LAD, and lungs, since with this technique there was an increase in the distance between the target and the OARs. With appropriate patient selection and adequate training, the DIBH technique is acceptable and achievable for radiotherapy to the chest, and therefore should be considered for all suitable patients, as this could result in fewer radiotherapy-related complications. However, this technique is time-consuming, since the setup is complex, results in an increased time for treatment delivery, and needs patient cooperation and technical expertise.