[Chemoradiotherapy: history and state of the art]

The idea of combining radiotherapy and chemotherapy goes back to the very beginning of the antimitotic drugs era. At that time, this association was mainly based on a simple concept: spatial cooperation. The first period was one of so-called "adjuvant" (post-irradiation) chemotherapy, soon followed by the once-fashionable "neo-adjuvant" chemotherapy era. Today, concomitant administration of both therapies, mainly based on radiosensitization, appears promising, although the previous schemes were clearly efficient for some specific indications. In 1998, radiochemotherapy combinations represent an unavoidable part of the anticancer strategy. A number of them have been recognized as the standard treatment for some localizations, and there is little risk to imagine that this number will increase within the next decade.