Radiation-induced Cardiac Toxicity After Non-small Cell Lung Cancer Radiotherapy

Despite the growing interest in investigating how the radiotherapy (RT) dose to anatomical substructures of the heart links to survival, the heart substructures at risk remain poorly defined. They are not delineated routinely as part of the RT planning process and there is no consensus on their dose constrains. With improving prognosis for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients, the evidence relating irradiation of the heart to excess mortality has begun to accumulate. The study aims to evaluate subclinical cardiac dysfunction in consecutive NSCLC patients treated with definitive RT and to investigate the predictive value of the heart substructures dosimetric parameters for subclinical and overt cardiac toxicity as assessed using traditional and speckle tracking echocardiography (STE). The study will also investigate whether subclinical alterations detected by echocardiography with strain imaging may serve as a marker for future clinical dysfunctions.