Benefits linked to radiation therapy dose?
Furthermore, the study adds to evidence suggesting the role of dose in radiation therapy’s benefits in POAML, Dr. Casanovas noted. He pointed to previous research showing that, with a median radiotherapy dose of 26 Gy, stage I POAML patients had a local relapse rate of 9.5%, whereas in the current study, which reported a median radiotherapy dose of 30.6 Gy, the local relapse rate was just 2%.
“Regarding the risk of local relapse, it’s important to see that, as previous published, the risk of a local relapse depends probably on the dose of radiotherapy,” he said.
The results indicate that “radiation therapy could impact patients’ outcome. In comparison to previous research, this suggests benefits from a higher dose.”
He added that “it would be interesting to test in this series if patients receiving more or less 30 Gy had different outcomes or the risks of failure at different sites.”
Overall, the study confirms that POAML “can be safely treated with radiation therapy, which allows for a better chance of local control, compared with other options, but does not preclude relapse over time,” Dr. Casasnovas concluded, adding, “I think that a standardization of radiotherapy dose is warranted to provide guidelines to clinicians treating this infrequent population of patients.”
The authors had no disclosures to report.