Functional imaging for radiotherapy treatment planning: current status and future directions—a review

In recent years, radiotherapy (RT) has been subject to a number of technological innovations. Today, RT is extremely flexible, allowing irradiation of tumours with high doses, whilst also sparing normal tissues from doses. To make use of these additional degrees of freedom, integration of functional...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inBritish journal of radiology Vol. 88; no. 1051; p. 20150056
Main Author Thorwarth, D
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England The British Institute of Radiology 01.07.2015
Subjects
Diagnostic Imaging
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Neoplasms - diagnosis
Neoplasms - physiopathology
Neoplasms - radiotherapy
Patient Care Planning
Positron-Emission Tomography
Prognosis
Radiotherapy and Oncology
Tomography, X-Ray Computed
Tumor Burden
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Summary:In recent years, radiotherapy (RT) has been subject to a number of technological innovations. Today, RT is extremely flexible, allowing irradiation of tumours with high doses, whilst also sparing normal tissues from doses. To make use of these additional degrees of freedom, integration of functional image information may play a key role (i) for better staging and tumour detection, (ii) for more accurate RT target volume delineation, (iii) to assess functional information about biological characteristics and individual radiation resistance and (iv) to apply personalized dose prescriptions. In this article, we discuss the current status and future directions of different clinically available functional imaging modalities; CT, MRI, positron emission tomography (PET) as well as the hybrid imaging techniques PET/CT and PET/MRI and their potential for individualized RT.
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ISSN:0007-1285
1748-880X
1748-880X
DOI:10.1259/bjr.20150056