[Pulmonary perfusion, ventilation, and gas exchange during modified cobalt-60 teletherapy of operated on breast carcinomas].

Post ablationem mammae, 22 patients were exposed to a modified telecobalt-irradiation because of mammary carcinoma. (Tangential pendulum irradiation of the thoracic wall with deflection of the central beam off the pendulum axis, parasternal irradiation with pendulum fields, irradiation of the supraclavicular and axillar area with deflection of the central beam to lateral and cranial directions.) During radiation therapy and up to six months after its termination, periodical pulmonary function tests were accomplished, consisting in a radiogram of the thorax, in spirometric check-up and blood gas analysis, and in an examination of pulmonary perfusion and ventilation using radionuclide techniques. In one patient with metastases to the ribs, the spirographic and nulear-medical ventilatory results changed for the worse in the course of time, whereas the other 21 patients did not show any significantly abnormal alterations at follow-up examinations.