In about one third of the pediatric cancer patients radiotherapy is a major part of the treatment. Although essential for curing certain types of pediatric cancers, radiotherapy can also cause late health outcomes. From the late 90s onwards, the radiotherapy treatment switched from two dimensionally planned radiotherapy (2DRT) treatment to CT-based three dimensionally planned radiotherapy (3DRT) treatment. In 3DRT, the dose to the healthy surrounding tissue is lower, although a larger volume of healthy tissue receives this lower dose. The lower dose to surrounding tissue in 3DRT will hypothetically lead to a reduction in late health outcomes, but clinical data about this reduction in large cohorts is scarce yet.
My PhD aims to get more insight in the late health effects after 3DRT in a nationwide cohort study among childhood cancer survivors. To do so, we will collect the late health outcomes as well as the details on the radiotherapy treatments, such as the digital images of the treatment, the actual treatment plans and the Dose Volume Histograms (DVHs) to calculate the dose that was delivered to the surrounding tissue (organs at risk).
Supervisor(s): Cecile Ronckers, Geert Janssens, Leontien Kremer, Jop Teepen, Judith Kok