Biology-Guided Radiation Therapy: An Evolving Treatment Paradigm

Colton Ladbury; Nicholas Eustace; Arya Amini; Savita Dandapani; Terence Williams

doi:10.1016/j.soc.2023.02.006

Biology-Guided Radiation Therapy: An Evolving Treatment Paradigm

Surg Oncol Clin N Am. 2023 Jul;32(3):553-568. doi: 10.1016/j.soc.2023.02.006. Epub 2023 Mar 28.

Authors

Colton Ladbury¹, Nicholas Eustace¹, Arya Amini¹, Savita Dandapani¹, Terence Williams²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Radiation Oncology, City of Hope National Medical Center, 1500 East Duarte Road, Duarte, CA 91010, USA.
² Department of Radiation Oncology, City of Hope National Medical Center, 1500 East Duarte Road, Duarte, CA 91010, USA. Electronic address: terwilliams@coh.org.

PMID: 37182992
DOI: 10.1016/j.soc.2023.02.006

Abstract

Biology-guided radiation therapy is an emerging field whereby delivery of external beam radiotherapy incorporates biological/molecular imaging to inform radiation treatment. At present, there is evidence for the use of functional imaging such as PET to evaluate treatment response in patients both during and after radiation treatment as well as to provide a method of adapting or selecting patient-specific treatments. Examples in thoracic, gastrointestinal, and hematologic malignancies are provided. Improvements in PET metrics, thresholds, and novel radiotracers will further move this novel field forward.

Keywords: BgRT; Biology-guided radiotherapy; PET; Radiotherapy; gastrointestinal cancer; lung cancer; lymphoma; molecular imaging.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Biology
Diagnostic Imaging*
Humans
Radiotherapy Planning, Computer-Assisted* / methods