Radiation dose to testes and risk of infertility from radiotherapy for rectal cancer

Abstract

This study aims to provide the means for testicular dose estimation from radiotherapy for rectal cancer. Rectal irradiation was simulated on a humanoid phantom using a 6 MV photon beam. The effect of field size, distance from irradiated area, wedge introduction into lateral beams, tissue thickness along the beam axis and use of gonad shields on the testicular dose was examined. Testicular dose was measured in five patients undergoing radiotherapy for rectal carcinoma. For a 4500 cGy tumour dose, testicular dose was 32-216 cGy depending upon the field dimensions and the distance from the field isocenter. The presence of wedges increased the testicular dose by a factor up to 2.2. The increase of irradiated tissue thickness increased the gonadal dose up to 40% whereas the use of the appropriate gonad shield reduced the dose by >66%. A simple method was developed to estimate testicular dose. The mean difference between the in vivo gonadal doses and the doses calculated using the proposed method was 5.8%. Testicular dose can exceed the value of 100 cGy, which permits a complete recovery of spermatogenesis. The presented data can be used to estimate the gonadal dose and the associated risk of infertility attributable to rectal irradiation.