Tumor Response Monitoring and Treatment Planning

Medical imaging has progressed to a standard undreamed of just a few years ago. How do the improvements in radiation technology affect strategies for treating and monitoring tumours? Many of the changes that are taking place in radiation therapy are documented in this state-of-the-art overview. Three-dimensional target volumes for radiation therapy are being defined with a new precision. Consequently, there is a greater chance of bringing a tumour under control and less change of causing complications in the normal tissues. Besides better dosages, great strides are being made in tumour response monitoring so that morphological alterations may be detected and physiological changes may be shown in the tumour during and after treatment with MRI and PET. This not only leads to better prognostic information but may also allow the physician to evaluate immediately how the tumour responds to the treatment. In the future, it may even be possible to individualize the radiation dose as well as to determine an alternate treatment for non-responders.