Larger bladder geometry was linked to lower planned bladder dose in prostate radiotherapy

Larger bladder volume was strongly associated with lower planned bladder dose in a static five-fraction prostate radiotherapy analysis.

KEY POINTS

  • Multicenter planned-dose analysis of 37 prostate radiotherapy plans from four centers, with an additional 8-case institutional cohort used only to assess workflow applicability.
  • All final analytic cases were treated with five-fraction volumetric modulated arc therapy; explicit target prescription-dose information was available in 33 of 37 plans, with a median prescribed dose of 36.25 Gy.
  • Bladder volume was strongly inversely associated with planned bladder dose: bladder D95 r = -0.78, p < 0.001 and bladder mean dose r = -0.76, p < 0.001.
  • Bladder longitudinal extent was also inversely associated with bladder D95 r = -0.72, p = 0.002; prescription-normalized sensitivity analyses preserved the main bladder-related pattern.
  • No toxicity or clinical outcome endpoints were reported. Near-zero bladder D2cc values in 8 of 35 cases were interpreted as geometric separation from the high-dose region rather than dose-reconstruction failure.

CLINICAL TAKEAWAY

This study suggests that simple planning computed tomography-derived geometry may help flag prostate radiotherapy cases requiring closer organ-at-risk review. The evidence is technical and hypothesis-generating: the analysis was small, static, based on planned dose only, and did not include delivered-dose reconstruction or toxicity validation.

SOURCE

Frontiers in Oncology