Clinical Implications of 3D-Conformal Radiotherapy

INTRODUCTION: Local tumor control in cancer patients is the major goal of radiation therapy. More than 10% of cancer patients die as a result of local failure with no evidence of metastatic disease. A local failure can represent the cause of metastastic progression. As most malignant tumors show a steep dose-response curve, an increased total dose may result in improved long-term cure rates at least in a subset of patients. But dose escalation is often not possible with conventional radiotherapy techniques because raising the dose to the target also raises the dose to surrounding normal tissue. Recent technical developments gave way to the introduction of 3-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3DCRT) techniques into clinical practice. Copyright 2000 S. Karger GmbH, Freiburg