Radiotherapy (RT) can be curative in patients with localized follicular lymphoma (FL), with historical series showing a 10-year disease-free survival of 40-50%. As ¹⁸F-FDG PET-CT upstages 10-60% of patients compared to CT, we sought to evaluate outcomes in patients staged by PET-CT, to determine if more accurate staging leads to better patient selection and results. We conducted a multicenter retrospective study. Inclusion criteria were: RT alone for untreated stage I-II FL (grade 1-3A) with dose equivalent ≥24 Gy, staged by PET-CT, age ≥18 years, and follow up ≥3 months. Endpoints were freedom from progression (FFP), local control, and overall survival (OS). FFP and OS were estimated with Kaplan-Meier, and uni- and multivariable analyses of prognostic factors performed with Cox Regression. 512 patients treated from 2000-2017 at 16 centres were eligible for analysis. Median age was 58 years (range 20-90). 410 patients (80.1%) had stage I disease. Median RT dose was 30 Gy (24-52). Median follow up was 52 months (3.2-174.6). 5y-FFP and OS were 68.9% and 95.7%. For stage I, 5y-FFP was 74.1%, vs 49.1% for stage II (p<0.0001). 8 patients relapsed infield (1.6%).4 had marginal recurrences (0.8%) resulting in local control rate of 97.6%. On multivariable analysis, stage II (HR=2.11, 95%CI=1.44-3.10) and BCL2 expression (HR =1.62, 95%CI 1.07-2.47) were significantly associated with less favorable FFP. Outcome after RT in PET-CT staged patients appears to be better than in earlier series, particularly in stage I disease, suggesting that the curative potential of RT for truly localized FL has been underestimated. Key points Outcome following radiotherapy for stage I and localized stage II follicular lymphoma after PET-CT staging is better than historical series. More than two-thirds of patients remain in remission at 5 years and most relapses occur in distant sites.

Objective: The aim of this study was to identify the comprehensive risk factors for lymphedema, thereby enabling a more informed multidisciplinary treatment decision-making. Summary Background Data: Lymphedema is a serious long-term complication in breast cancer patients post-surgery; however, the influence of multimodal therapy on its occurrence remains unclear. Methods: We retrospectively collected treatment-related data from 5549 breast cancer patients who underwent surgery between 2007 and 2015 at our institution. Individual radiotherapy plans were reviewed for regional nodal irradiation (RNI) field design and fractionation type. We identified lymphedema risk factors and used them to construct nomograms to predict individual risk of lymphedema. Nomograms were validated internally using 100 bootstrap samples and externally using 2 separate datasets of 1877 Asian and 191 Western patients. Results: Six hundred thirty-nine patients developed lymphedema during a median follow-up of 60 months. The 3-year lymphedema incidence was 10.5%; this rate increased with larger irradiation volumes (no RNI vs RNI excluding axilla I–II vs RNI including axilla I–II: 5.7% vs 16.8% vs 24.1%) and when using conventional fractionation instead of hypofractionation (13.5% vs 6.8%). On multivariate analysis, higher body mass index, larger number of dissected nodes, taxane-based regimen, total mastectomy, larger irradiation field, and conventional fractionation were strongly associated with lymphedema (all P < 0.001). Nomograms constructed based on these variables showed good calibration and discrimination internally (concordance index: 0.774) and externally (0.832 for Asian and 0.820 for Western patients). Conclusions: Trimodality breast cancer treatment factors interact to promote lymphedema. Lymphedema risk can be decreased by deintensifying node dissection, chemotherapy regimen, and field and dose of radiotherapy. Deescalation strategies on a multidisciplinary basis might minimize lymphedema risk.

With increasing clinical use, radiotherapy (RT) has been considered reliable and effective method for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) treatment, depending on extent of disease and patient characteristics. RT for HCC can improve therapeutic outcomes through excellent local control, downstaging, conversion from unresectable to resectable status, and treatments of unresectable HCCs with vessel invasion or multiple intrahepatic metastases. In addition, further development of modern RT technologies, including image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT), intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT), and stereotactic body radiotherapy, has expanded the indication of RT. An essential feature of IGRT is that it allows image guidance therapy through in-room images obtained during radiation delivery. Compared with 3D-conformal RT, distinctions of IMRT are inverse treatment planning process and use of a large number of treatment fields or subfields, which provide high precision and exquisitely conformal dose distribution. These modern RT techniques allow more precise treatment by reducing inter- and intra-fractional errors resulting from daily changes and irradiated dose at surrounding normal tissues. More recently, particle therapy has been actively investigated to improve effectiveness of RT. This review discusses modern RT strategies for HCC, as well as optimal selection of RT in multimodal approach for HCC.