Advances in Clinical Radiobiology

摘要

The world-weary clinical oncologist may well ask have there been any advances in radiobiology. In this issue of Clinical Oncology we will show that there have been major advances and indeed there are more to come. Radiotherapy has largely advanced because of clinical empiricism. A typical example is the use of fractionation in external beam radiotherapy and the development of low dose rate brachytherapy treatments. Most fractionation regimens were developed essentially by trial and error leading to an improvement in the therapeutic ratio between damage to the tumour and the normal tissues. One of the greatest developments in radiobiology was the demonstration that most tumours contained hypoxic cells and hypoxia was a major source of radioresistance. Efforts to decrease tumour cell hypoxia dominated clinical radiobiological research for almost two decades. Trials of hyperbaric oxygen and nitroimidazoles were relatively disappointing and did not lead to a change in clinical practice, with the possible exception of the use of nimor-azole in Denmark.