Figure 4
Risk–benefit classification of high-risk patients for cardiac events and lung cancer. Risk calculations based on cardiac and lung cancer mortality neglect risk-contributions from other radiation-induced cancers, such as esophageal, thyroid or contralateral breast cancer. Hence, radiation-related mortality risk is underestimated. Taylor’s data7 are based on a variety of prescription doses, the most common being 25 × 2.0 Gy. The prescription dose in this study was 15 × 2.67 Gy. A weakness of these risk calculations is that neither total dose nor fractionation could be taken into account.
