New Approaches in Radiation Therapy

According to recent statistics from the American Cancer Society, over 850 000 cases of invasive cancers are diagnosed yearly in the United States. Approximately 70% of these patients will present with locoregional disease potentially amenable to curative treatment using surgery, radiation therapy, or combined modality therapy. However, in spite of current treatment strategies, up to 30% of these patients will develop recurrent local disease which, in the majority, will lead ultimately to death. In addition, acute and late radiation damage to normal tissues can occur following high-dose external beam therapy used in definitive radiation therapy or as adjunctive therapy in combination with surgery and/or chemotherapy. We now realize that the radiation tolerance of some normal tissues can be modified in combined modality therapy due to additive or synergistic effects of surgery and, particularly, chemotherapy with radiation therapy.