Abstract
A "SHort course Accelerated RadiatiON therapy" (SHARON) During and Beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Highlights
Reducing the RT treatment time reduces the duration of patient exposure to the hospital environment and the overcrowding of RT departments
The experimentation of the SHARON scheme began with a phase I study on brain metastases [11], followed by subsequent trials and analyses [12–20]
The SHARON schedule was extensively analyzed in multiple settings for symptomatic clinical presentations: brain metastases, thoracic, esophageal, pelvic, and “head and neck” lesions, and complicated bone metastases
Summary
As reported, the rate of acute toxicity equal or superior to Grade 3 (according to the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group - RTOG - Scale) is inferior to 7% and mostly does account for 0%–2% in all the Phase I and II studies; the late toxicity is extremely low As it is evident, the results in terms of tolerability and efficacy in controlling symptoms were positive. Seven clinical controlled randomized trials are ongoing to investigate in multiple metastatic symptomatic presentations (brain, “head and neck,” thoracic, esophageal, abdominal, pelvic, and complicated bone metastases) if the proposed regimen is effective to the more commonly applied standard regimen of delivering 30 Gy in 10 fractions (3 Gy each) over 2 weeks; the pending result of these trials will even potentially suggest to include the “Sharon” RT schedule into the routine clinical palliative RT practice beyond the proposed scenario of management for the COVID-19 pandemic.
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