Description
The aim of radiotherapy is to deliver the maximum dose to the tumour volume and the minimum dose to the normal surrounding tissues. The development of intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) which achieves complex dose distributions resulting in tightly conformed high dose regions with normal tissue avoidance goes some way to realisation of this goal. Clinical implementation is increasing rapidly and many patients currently treated with radiotherapy have tumour and critical organ relationships that would benefit from the improved dose distribution promised by IMRT and the future possibility of further benefit with biological and imaging advances. However, these technological advances have significant time and resource implications and the clinical needs and potential benefits of IMRT need full evaluation by clinical studies.
