The Impact of Patient Positioning and Use of Belly Board on Small Bowel and Urinary Bladder Volume Irradiated in Patients Receiving Radiotherapy for Rectal Cancer: A Prospective Phase II Study

Radiotherapy has a significant impact on local control, disease free survival and overall survival in patients with rectal cancer T2, N1, M0 and T3-4, any N, M0. Treatment is accompanied by side effects, mainly due to the inclusion of the small bowel and urinary bladder in the treatment fields.
Two major modalities have been pursued to reduce the volume of small intestine and urinary bladder in treatment volume. One is a surgical procedure, such as absorbable mesh. These procedures have failed implementation in daily clinical practice. The second modality aims to save the small intestine and urinary bladder from the toxicity of radiotherapy by modulating the radiotherapy planning procedure. Using the belly board and changing the standard position from supine to prone could achieve this aim; in part due to gravitational displacement of the bowel. Several studies have evaluated the impact of positioning and use of belly board in patients receiving pelvis irradiation for rectal cancer. The results are inconclusive, but the prone position with belly board appears promising.
This study carefully evaluates the impact of patient’s positioning and belly board on dose volume histogram of small bowel and urinary bladder