Early clinical experience with a degraded 4 MeV electron beam in radiotherapy of superficial basal cell carcinoma

Assi Valve; Sari Koskenmies; Mikko Tenhunen; Heidi Nurmi; Micaela Hernberg; Samuli Salminen; Anu Anttonen

doi:10.1016/j.phro.2023.100487

Early clinical experience with a degraded 4 MeV electron beam in radiotherapy of superficial basal cell carcinoma

Phys Imaging Radiat Oncol. 2023 Aug 28:27:100487. doi: 10.1016/j.phro.2023.100487. eCollection 2023 Jul.

Authors

Assi Valve^{1

2}, Sari Koskenmies³, Mikko Tenhunen¹, Heidi Nurmi⁴, Micaela Hernberg⁵, Samuli Salminen¹, Anu Anttonen¹

Affiliations

¹ Cancer Center, Department of Radiation Oncology, Helsinki University Hospital and University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
² Department of Physics, MATRENA, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
³ Department of Dermatology and Allergology, Helsinki University Hospital and University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
⁴ Department of Oncology, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.
⁵ Cancer Center, Department of Oncology, Helsinki University Hospital and University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.

Abstract

The most common non-melanoma skin cancer is basal cell carcinoma (BCC). Surgery is the gold standard treatment but also non-surgical alternatives are needed. The purpose of this work was to present the early clinical experiences of degraded 4 MeV electron beam as a treatment method for superficial BCC. Twelve patients underwent two weeks radiation therapy treatment with either 5 × 7 Gy or 2 × 12 Gy. There were no significant differences in treatment outcome with different fractionations or lesion locations. The degraded beam method is a safe and valid non-surgical solution for suitable patients with superficial lesions.

Keywords: Clinical trial; Electron beam; Skin cancer.