Early effect of radiation on the liver function tests of patients with thoracic and abdominal tumors during radiotherapy

Abstract

The liver is an organ at risk (OAR) in radiotherapy of thoracic and abdominal tumors such as gastric, distal esophagus, lower lung and breast, bile duct, pancreas and whole abdomen. In this study the alteration in liver functional tests (LFT) of these patients during radiotherapy was investigated. To that end, the level of serum aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), direct and total bilirubin were checked out at different times (before radiotherapy and every 2 weeks after the start of radiotherapy and followed up to 2 months after the end of treatment). The results showed that LFT level increased during radiotherapy while they gradually decreased after treatment. Our results showed that the LFT serum is a very sensitive and useful biomarker for evaluation of the radiotherapy effects.