For women undergoing adjuvant radiation after hysterectomy for cervical cancer, image-guided intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) has similar oncological benefit as standard radiation therapy with less gastrointestinal (GI) toxicity, a study shows.

Indian researchers randomly allocated 283 women undergoing adjuvant radiotherapy for cervical cancer to image-guided IMRT or 3-D conformal radiation (3D-CRT).

The majority of women in both arms received concurrent chemotherapy and a brachytherapy boost following external radiation treatments.

“We observed a clear benefit of image-guided IMRT” on reducing late bowel toxicity, said lead author Dr Supriya Chopra, professor of radiation oncology at the Tata Memorial Centre in Mumbai, India, in her presentation at the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) virtual annual meeting.