Concurrent Chemoradiation With Concomitant Boost In Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer

Radiotherapy was applied as conformal 3-D technique and was delivered with photon energies of 10 - 15 MV. The beams were delivered by an Elekta Precise Linac equipped with standard multi leaf collimators (MLC). A daily online check of isocenter position was performed using portal imaging, with set-up correction in case of displacement \> 0.5 cm in any direction. Radiation dose delivered to PTV2 was 45 Gy (1.8 Gy/fraction) with a concomitant boost dose to the PTV1 of 10 Gy with accelerated fractionation at 2.2 Gy/fraction, five consecutive days for week.

The concurrent chemotherapy consisted of 15 min intravenous infusion Raltitrexed (Tomudex ®) 3 mg/m2 and a two-hours intravenous infusion of Oxaliplatin (Eloxatin ®) at 130 mg/m 2, 20 min after raltitrexed, on days 1, 17, 35.