Radiotherapy and oncology : journal of the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology
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Comparative Study
The modelled benefits of individualizing radiotherapy patients' dose using cellular radiosensitivity assays with inherent variability.
To model the increases in local tumour control that may be achieved, without increasing normal tissue complications, by prescribing a patient's dose based on cellular radiosensitivity measured using an assay possessing inherent variability. ⋯ Modelling based on measured distributions of fibroblast radiosensitivity shows that improvements in tumour control rates may be achievable through the individualization of radiotherapy dose prescriptions of cancer patients, when assay variability is less than about 50% of the true variability in radiosensitivity, and with greater benefits if tumour and normal tissue radiosensitivity are correlated. Tripartite stratification of the population proved to be less sensitive to assay uncertainty, and can provide most of the benefits of the full individualization.