Cochlea sparing with a stratified scheme of dose limitation employed in intensity-modulated radiotherapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma: A dosimetry study

Abstract Hearing loss is 1 of the major complications after radiotherapy in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients, how to minimize dose to cochlea in order to reduce the incidence of sensorineural hearing loss is a critical task. This study is to investigate a stratified scheme of cochlea sparing based on T stage in intensity-modulated radiotherapy. We designed a comparison between 2 plans of cochlea sparing plan (C-Plan) and regular noncochlea sparing plan (R-Plan) from 19 NPC patients with 2, 3, 8, and 6 cases of T1, T2, T3, and T4 stage, respectively. The outcomes showed that target coverage parameters and dose-volume histogram features were of no significant difference, with a significant difference in dose distribution between C-Plan and R-Plan in cochlea and eustachian, e.g. , ipsilateral cochlea D mean 4619.75 ± 1134.09 cGy in C-Plan and 5061.03 ± 1121.09 cGy in R-Plan ( p  = 0.000), contralateral cochlea D mean 4386.73 ± 945.14 cGy in C-Plan and 4991.38 ± 961.21 cGy in R-Plan ( p  = 0.000). Meanwhile, there was no significant difference in dose distribution in spinal cord, brainstem, and other OARs. Our dosimetry study showed cochlea sparing in intensity-modulated radiotherapy for NPC reduced cochlea dose to different extent, so we suggested a stratified scheme of cochlea sparing based on T stage could be a useful and practical tool for both physicists and radiation doctors.