Can we rely on surgical clips placed during oncoplastic breast surgery to accurately delineate the tumor bed for targeted breast radiotherapy?

Ghada Aldosary, Jean-Michel Caudrelier, Angel Arnaout, Lynn Chang, Tabitha Tse, Claire Foottit, Jiheon Song, Jason Belec, Eric Vandervoort

Can we rely on surgical clips placed during oncoplastic breast surgery to accurately delineate the tumor bed for targeted breast radiotherapy?
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Oncoplastic breast surgery (OBS) is gaining popularity among surgeons for breast-conserving surgery treatments. OBS relies on complex relocation and deformation of breast tissue involving the tumor bed (TB). In this study, we investigate the validity of using surgical clips with OBS for accurate TB delineation in adjuvant, targeted breast radiotherapy.

Different OBS techniques were simulated on realistic breast phantoms. Surgical clips were used to demarcate the TB. Following tumor resection and closure, the true TB (TBTrue) was extracted. Each phantom was CT imaged at several phases of surgery in order to record pre- and post-OBS closure surgical clip displacements. Two senior radiation oncologists (ROs) were asked to delineate TBs on CTs by relying on surgical clips placed as per standard protocol, and by referring to operative notes. Their original contours, as well as those expanded using 5-15 mm margins, were compared with the accurate TBTrue using the dice similarity coefficient (DSC), Hausdorff Distance (HD), and over- and under-contoured volumes. Inter- and intra-RO contour agreements were also evaluated.

Following OBS, surgical clips alone are not reliable radiographic surrogates of TB locations and accurate TB delineation is challenging. For complex OBS cases, indication of any type of partial breast irradiation is very questionable.

Read full article here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33484375/ 

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