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Biological Models in Treatment Planning

  • Chapter
New Technologies in Radiation Oncology

Part of the book series: Medical Radiology ((Med Radiol Radiat Oncol))

18.8 Conclusion

Several biological models have been developed. Although these models give a correct description of the main characteristics of the radiation response, great caution has to be taken if these models are to be applied to patients.

While the linear-quadratic model provides a good description of experimental settings, a larger uncertainty is involved in the prediction of iso-effects for clinical applications. The more advanced NTCP and TCP models should only be applied for relative, rather than absolute, predictions of effect probabilities. When using relative values, the uncertainty of the predictions should be considered to decide whether a detected difference is really significant. As TCP/NTCP models are currently not completely validated, integration of these models into the cost function of the dose optimisation algorithm is not warranted. Whether it is possible to arrive at fully biologically optimised treatment plans for photon therapy has to be investigated by further research.

In this context, the clinical application of heavy charged particles plays an exceptional role as biological optimisation is routinely performed and an adequate RBE model is an essential prerequisite. The applied RBE model may still contain some degree of uncertainty which has to be considered carefully at treatment plan assessment and dose prescription.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Abteilung Medizinische Physik in der Strahlentherapie, Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, Im Neuenheimer Feld 280, 69120, Heidelberg, Germany

    Christian P. Karger PhD

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  1. Christian P. Karger PhD
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Abteilung Medizinische Physik in der Strahlentherapie, Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, Im Neuenheimer Feld 280, 69120, Heidelberg, Germany

    Wolfgang Schlegel PhD (Professor) (Professor)

  2. Department of Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, 30,Fruit Street, Boston, MA, 02114, USA

    Thomas Bortfeld PhD (Professor) (Professor)

  3. Department of Radiation Oncology, Klinikum rechts der Isar Technical University Munich, Ismaningerstrasse 22, 81675, München, Germany

    Anca-Ligia Grosu MD (Privatdozent) (Privatdozent)

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Karger, C.P. (2006). Biological Models in Treatment Planning. In: Schlegel, W., Bortfeld, T., Grosu, AL. (eds) New Technologies in Radiation Oncology. Medical Radiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-29999-8_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-29999-8_18

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