ISIORT pooled analysis 2013 update: clinical and technical characteristics of introperative radiotherapy

Purpose: Data from centers active in intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT) were collected within the International Society of Intraoperative Radiation Therapy (ISIORT)-Europe program. The purpose of the present study was to analyze and report the main clinical and technical variables of IORT performed by the participating centers. Materials and methods: Since 2007, ISIORT-Europe centers were invited to record data of IORT procedures in a common database. Other centers worldwide joined this initiative over time. Collected data included demographic, clinical and technical information. Results: Thirty-one centers participated in the survey and data of 7,196 IORT procedures have been recorded to 2013. Median age of patients was 60.6 years (range, 5 months-94 years). Gender was female in 80.2% of cases and male in 19.8%. Treatment intent was curative in 7,054 cases (98%) and 1,587 patients (22.1%) were included in study protocols. The most frequent tumor was breast cancer with 5,654 cases (78.6%) followed by rectal cancer with 641 cases (8.9%), soft-tissue and bone sarcoma with 257 cases (3.6%), prostate cancer with 128 cases (1.8%), pancreatic cancer with 87 cases (1.2%), gastric cancer with 65 cases (0.9%), and esophageal cancer with 53 cases (0.7%). Treatment chronology shows how IORT number of recorded cases increased according with the interest in the ISIORT project. Conclusions: This report gives an overview of patient selection and treatment modalities for the main tumor types effectively treated in a large group of active and experienced international centers using IORT. This data can be a basis for further surveys and for prospective studies devoted to analyze in depth IORT containing multimodal cancer treatment approaches.