Methods Eight patients with left-early breast cancer who underwent conservative surgery and with a prescription of whole breast adjuvant radiotherapy were considered in this study. Patient eligibility PSI-7977 mw criteria were:

≥ 18 years of age; not oxygen dependent; did not experience pain while in the supine position. Patient age ranged from 39 to 70 years (mean 51 years). Training The training session established the patient’s inspiration level for treatment and breath-hold duration. A reflective marker (RPM Box) was placed on the patient’s abdominal surface, midway between the xyphoid process and the umbilicus to monitor the respiratory motion. The patients were asked to breathe freely and then inhale and hold their breath at a comfortable level, just below their maximum inspiration capacity, for at least 15 seconds. This cycle was to be repeated two or three times in succession. The respiratory signal was recorded with the Varian RPM™ system. Once a comfortable deep inspiration level was found, a lower and an upper thresholds were placed on the respiratory signal to define the gating window. The training was carried out by providing the patient with electronic eyeglasses (video coaching) which allowed visualization of a coloured band, representing the gating window, and a movable bar that followed the patient’s abdomen/chest movement, thus Belnacasan mouse ensuring the reproducibility of deep inspiration amplitude.

The width of the gating window was chosen such that the allowed amplitude of the residual RPM box motion was 0.5 cm. Under these conditions, a CT scan was performed for treatment planning. The patient had to be able to understand these instructions, be capable of performing a reproducible breath-hold, and be able to maintain it for

at least 15 seconds. The training session required about 30 minutes. CT investigations A CT Scanner Lightspeed 16 slices (GE) was used. The patients were placed in the treatment position supine with their arms raised above their head, the sternum in horizontal position and their shoulders, elbows and back immobilised with a wingboard. Orthogonal room lasers were used to place skin markers to verify that no shift occurred between scans. Finally, the RPM box was placed between either the xyphoid process and the umbilicus, i.e. in proximity to the target breast, but outside the area to be covered by the radiation treatment fields. Two spiral scans were acquired, each covering the area from the mid-neck to the upper abdomen. The scanning parameters were: 120 kVp, mA range = 30–150 mA, 0.8 s/rotation, beam collimation = 20 mm, distance between two selleck kinase inhibitor successive slices = 2.5 mm, image matrix = 512×512 pixels, field of view (FOV) = 50 cm. The first scan for conventional treatment planning (reference scan) was acquired during Free Breathing (FB). The second scan, acquired during DIBH, was manually started immediately after the inspiratory plateau was reached, as visually confirmed by the respiration monitoring.