High-dose-rate brachytherapy for soft tissue sarcoma in children
Daya Nand Sharma, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India
28 April 2008
Dear Editor,
I read the interesting article entitled “High-dose-rate brachytherapy for soft tissue sarcoma in children: a single institution experience” by Viani et. al. published in Radiation Oncology (Biomed central) on 19th April 2008. I will argue some of the points in this study as below.
• The title and the abstract section does not signify whether the high dose rate brachytherapy alone or in combination with external beam radiation therapy was used as definitive treatment or adjuvant to surgery. There is no mention of any surgical procedure in the title or the entire abstract section of the manuscript.
• The authors have not provided the distribution of patients according to the staging of the disease neither in the manuscript nor in the tabulated form. Any study pertaining to pediatric rhabdomyosarcomas should essentially provide information on the IRS staging.
• Chemotherapy is an integral part of the treatment of pediatric sarcomas. The authors have failed to provide the relevant information on the same. The sequence of the chemotherapy in relation to surgery or radiotherapy and the chemotherapy regime used should have been mentioned at least.
• Some of the details of brachytherapy are missing in this study e.g. how many planes of brachytherapy (single or multiple) catheters were implanted and on which postoperative day the brachytherapy was started.
• The authors have given some contradictory information in the manuscript and Tables. In the Abstract section, it is mentioned that “eight patients were treated with HBRT alone; the remaining 10 were treated with a combination of HBRT and EBRT” while Table 1 describes the vice versa (10 patients received HBRT alone and 8 received EBRT plus HBRT.
• The authors have not provided the details of EBRT e.g. the machine used (Linear accelerator or cobalt), the number of fields used and whether 3D-CRT/IMRT was used?
High-dose-rate brachytherapy for soft tissue sarcoma in children
28 April 2008
Dear Editor,
I read the interesting article entitled “High-dose-rate brachytherapy for soft tissue sarcoma in children: a single institution experience” by Viani et. al. published in Radiation Oncology (Biomed central) on 19th April 2008. I will argue some of the points in this study as below.
• The title and the abstract section does not signify whether the high dose rate brachytherapy alone or in combination with external beam radiation therapy was used as definitive treatment or adjuvant to surgery. There is no mention of any surgical procedure in the title or the entire abstract section of the manuscript.
• The authors have not provided the distribution of patients according to the staging of the disease neither in the manuscript nor in the tabulated form. Any study pertaining to pediatric rhabdomyosarcomas should essentially provide information on the IRS staging.
• Chemotherapy is an integral part of the treatment of pediatric sarcomas. The authors have failed to provide the relevant information on the same. The sequence of the chemotherapy in relation to surgery or radiotherapy and the chemotherapy regime used should have been mentioned at least.
• Some of the details of brachytherapy are missing in this study e.g. how many planes of brachytherapy (single or multiple) catheters were implanted and on which postoperative day the brachytherapy was started.
• The authors have given some contradictory information in the manuscript and Tables. In the Abstract section, it is mentioned that “eight patients were treated with HBRT alone; the remaining 10 were treated with a combination of HBRT and EBRT” while Table 1 describes the vice versa (10 patients received HBRT alone and 8 received EBRT plus HBRT.
• The authors have not provided the details of EBRT e.g. the machine used (Linear accelerator or cobalt), the number of fields used and whether 3D-CRT/IMRT was used?
Dr DN Sharma,
Radiation Oncologist,
All India Institute of Medical Sciences,
New Delhi, India
Competing interests
None