Søren M. Bentzen

TL;DR: The Quantitative Analysis of Normal Tissue Effects in the Clinic (QUANTEC) review summarizes the currently available three-dimensional dose/volume/outcome data to update and refine the normal tissue dose/ volume tolerance guidelines provided by the classic Emami et al. paper published in 1991.

TL;DR: A radiation schedule delivering 40 Gy in 15 fractions seems to offer rates of local-regional tumour relapse and late adverse effects at least as favourable as the standard schedule of 50 Gy in 25 fractions.

TL;DR: Clinical limitations to the current knowledge base include the need for more data on the effect of patient-related cofactors, interactions between dose distribution and cytotoxic or molecular targeted agents, and theeffect of dose fractions and overall treatment time in relation to nonuniform dose distributions.

TL;DR: The data are consistent with the hypothesis that breast cancer and the dose-limiting normal tissues respond similarly to change in radiotherapy fraction size, and could offer similar rates of tumour control and normal tissue damage as the international standard fractionation schedule.

TL;DR: Progress in molecular pathology and normal-tissue radiobiology has improved the mechanistic understanding of late normal-Tissue effects and shifted the focus from initial-damage induction to damage recognition and tissue remodelling, which stimulates research into new pharmacological strategies for preventing or reducing the side effects of radiation therapy.