ABSTRACT
The term “urinary toxicity” comprises a wide variety of symptoms – including urinary frequency, obstruction and stricture, haematuria, dysuria or incontinence – with very different time patterns and different impact on the single patient’s quality of life. Traditionally, the anatomical bladder, contoured as a solid organ starting from the external bladder surface has been considered as the relevant structure to be spared during treatment optimization. The large majority of patients experiencing urinary toxicity has been treated with conventionally fractionated treatments. The patterns of development of urinary toxicities and the relationships with dose, fractionation, and irradiated volumes has never been deeply investigated in pre-clinical studies. Data pooling from different Institutes would be suitable to speed up the development of dose-volume modelling of urinary toxicity in stereotactic body radiotherapy. The portion of bladder outside planning target volume receives a “low-medium” dose bath, depending on the Planning Target Volume shape, delivered dose, delivery, and planning optimization techniques.
