| Abstract: | Radiotherapy plays an integral role in the management of more than 50% of cancer cases and 40% of patients cured of their cancer have radiotherapy as a part of their management. For some patients, it can be used definitively in place of surgery, offering the advantage of organ preservation. It is sometimes used before surgery to improve resection rates or after surgery to reduce recurrence rates. Outcomes may be improved if radiotherapy is combined with systemic therapies such as chemotherapy. The process of delivering radiotherapy is multi-level, involving clinical oncologists, medical physicists and therapeutic radiographers. Each step takes advantage of new technology that allows more accurate definition of the tumour and delivery of radiation, with the aim of improving treatment outcomes and reducing normal tissue toxicity. There have been significant advances in defining the target and delivering the radiation in the last few years, discussed further in this article. |
