Radiation Oncology Radiotherapy Radiosurgery Cancer Stem Cell

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Glioblastoma is the commonest primary brain cancer in adults whose outcomes are amongst the worst of any cancer. The current treatment pathway comprises surgery and postoperative chemoradiotherapy though unresectable diffusely infiltrative tumour cells remain untreated for several weeks post-diagnosis. Intratumoural heterogeneity combined with increased hypoxia in the postoperative tumour microenvironment potentially decreases the efficacy of adjuvant interventions and fails to prevent early postoperative regrowth, called rapid early progression (REP)...

BACKGROUND: This report from the Working Group on Stereotaktische Radiotherapie of the German Society of Radiation Oncology (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Radioonkologie, DEGRO) provides recommendations for the use of stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) on patients with brain metastases. It considers existing international guidelines and details them where appropriate. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The main recommendations are: Patients with solid tumors except germ cell tumors and small-cell lung cancer with a life expectancy of more than 3 months suffering from a single brain metastasis of less than 3 cm in diameter should be considered for SRS...

Significant developments in radiation oncology have taken place in recent years as a result of advances in radiation physics and molecular radiobiology. From the conventional 2-dimensional (2D) radiotherapy to 3-dimensional (3D) conformal radiotherapy, we have now entered the era of intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT). IMRT/IGRT allows conformal treatment of tumor and conformal avoidance of normal tissues leading to possible improvement of tumor control and decrease in treatment-related toxicity...