Abstract
Purpose: To determine whether there are differences in bone marrow tolerance to chemoradiotherapy (CRT) between two chemotherapy regimens according to FOWARC protocol and how chemotherapy regimens affect radiation dose parameters and normal tissue complication probability (NTCP) modelings that correlate with acute hematologic toxicity (HT) in rectal cancer patients treated with intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and concurrent chemotherapy. Materials and Methods: One hundred and twenty-eight rectal cancer patients who received IMRT from a single institution were recruited from Chinese FOWARC multicenter, open-label, randomized phase III trial. We assessed HT in these patients who were separated into two groups: Oxaliplatin (L-OHP) + 5- fluorouracil (5FU) (FOLFOX, 70 of 128) and 5FU (58 of 128). The pelvic bone marrow (PBM) was divided into three subsites: lumbosacral spine (LSS), ilium (I), and lower pelvic (LP). The endpoint for HT was grade ≥3 (HT3+) and grade ≥2 (HT2+) leukopenia, neutropenia, anemia and thrombocytopenia. Logistic regression was used to analyze the association between HT2+/HT3+ and dosimetric parameters. Lyman-Kutcher-Burman (LKB) model was used to calculate NTCP. Results: Sixty-eight patients experienced HT2+: 22 of 58 (37.9%) 5FU and 46 of 70 (65.7%) FOLFOX (p = 0.008), while twenty-six patients experienced HT3+: 4 of 58 (6.9%) 5FU and 22 of 70 (31.4%) FOLFOX (p = 0.016). PBM and LP dosimetric parameters were correlated with HT2+ in the 5FU group but not in the FOLFOX group. No PBM dosimetric parameters were correlated with HT3+ in both groups. For PBM, NTCP at HT3+ was 0.32 in FOLFOX group relative to 0.10 in 5FU subset (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Patients receiving FOLFOX have lower BM tolerance to CRT than those receiving 5FU. Low-dose radiation to the PBM is predictive for HT2+ in patients who received 5FU. NTCP modeling in FOLFOX group predicts much higher risk of HT3+ than 5FU group.