Open AccessOpportunities and challenges of radiotherapy for treating cancer
Author(s) -
Dörthe Schaue,
William H. McBride
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
nature reviews. clinical oncology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 12.214
H-Index - 155
eISSN - 1759-4782
pISSN - 1759-4774
DOI - 10.1038/nrclinonc.2015.120
Subject(s) - radiation therapy , radiobiology , medicine , medical physics , cancer , radiation oncology , cancer treatment , intensive care medicine , surgery
The past 20 years have seen dramatic changes in the delivery of radiation therapy, but the impact of radiobiology on the clinic has been far less substantial. A major consideration in the use of radiotherapy has been on how best to exploit differences between the tumour and host tissue characteristics, which in the past has been achieved empirically by radiation-dose fractionation. New advances are uncovering some of the mechanistic processes that underlie this success story. In this Review, we focus on how these processes might be targeted to improve the outcome of radiotherapy at the individual patient level. This approach would seem a more productive avenue of treatment than simply trying to increase the radiation dose delivered to the tumour.