Background: The safe use of radiotherapy (RT) requires compliance with dose/volume constraints (DVCs) for organs at risk (OaRs). However, the available recommendations are sometimes conflicting and scattered across a number of different documents. Therefore, the aim of this work is to provide, in a single document, practical indications on DVCs for OaRs in external beam RT available in the literature.
Material and methods: A multidisciplinary team collected bibliographic information on the anatomical definition of OaRs, on the imaging methods needed for their definition, and on DVCs in general and in specific settings (curative RT of Hodgkin's lymphomas, postoperative RT of breast tumors, curative RT of pediatric cancers, stereotactic ablative RT of ventricular arrythmia). The information provided in terms of DVCs was graded based on levels of evidence.
Results: Over 650 papers/documents/websites were examined. The search results, together with the levels of evidence, are presented in tabular form.
Conclusions: A working tool, based on collected guidelines on DVCs in different settings, is provided to help in daily clinical practice of RT departments. This could be a first step for further optimizations.
Keywords: dose–volume constraints; guideline; literature review; organs at risk; radiotherapy.