Coverage of regional lymphatic drainage in helical IMRT for breast cancer

Results of the ACOSOG Z0011 trial suggest that in patients with breast cancer, non-palpable lymphadenopathy and 1 – 2 metastatic sentinel lymph nodes, sentinel lymph node biopsy yields comparable results to axillary lymph node dissection if followed by tangential adjuvant radiotherapy of the breast. Tangential radiotherapy has thus been incorporated as a prerequisite for the abandonment of axillary lymph node dissection in these patients. The degree to which the axillary and other lymphatic drainage is covered by intensity-modulated radiotherapy has not been reported. We selected 5 consecutive patients from the…