Table 1.
Patient Characteristics.
Figure 1.
Mean plasma (+/− standard error) cytokine levels at each time point during radiotherapy (1-hour, 24-hours, 4-weeks) and after radiotherapy (12-weeks).
Levels are grouped into treatment type (ChemoRT vs RT alone). Cytokines in which the variation is different dependent upon treatment groups are marked with a delta (δ). Within each cytokine graph, an asterisk (*) denotes at which time the level of plasma cytokines are significantly different from the baseline level, with corrections for multiple comparisons performed using Dunnett’s method.
Figure 2.
Venn diagram depicting the relationship between variation of plasma cytokine levels and the variables of time and treatment.
MCP-1, TIMP-1, IP-10, MCP-3 and MIP-1β vary differently across the different timepoints sampled, but are have similar variance between treatment groups (RT alone vs ChemoRT). IL-6, Eotaxin, MDC, MIP-1α and VEGF levels varied across both time and treatment group. TNF-α levels were no different across time points sampled or treatment delivered.
Figure 3.
Correlation between irradiated PTV volume and the change in plasma cytokine concentration from baseline to 1-hour post irradiation for IL-6 (A), MCP-1 (B), and IP-10 (C).
Linear-regression line (blue) is displayed with 95% confidence intervals (red broken line).
Figure 4.
Correlation between mean lung dose (MLD) and the change in plasma cytokine concentration from baseline to 1-hour post irradiation for IL-6 (A), IP-10 (B), MCP-1 (C) and MCP-3 (D).
Linear-regression line (blue) is displayed with 95% confidence intervals (red broken line).
Figure 5.
Box and Whisker plot demonstrating median population change of cytokine levels from baseline for IP-10 and MCP-1 during treatment delivery, with 5th–95th centiles.
Statistically significant differences between patients with severe respiratory toxicities [shaded boxes] and those without [open boxes] are highlighted with associated p - values.
Figure 6.
Box and Whisker plot demonstrating median population change of cytokine levels from baseline for Eotaxin, IL-6 and TIMP-1 during treatment delivery, with 5th–95th centiles.
Statistically significant differences between patients with severe respiratory toxicities [shaded boxes] and those without [open boxes] are highlighted with associated p - values.