2nd Tuebingen radiotherapy symposium: Whole body, large field and whole skin irradiation. Introduction

The symposium which took place on the 11th and 12th April 1986 set itself the task of discussing three different groups of radiotherapy topics. The chief issue was whole-body irradiation prior to bone marrow transplants, in which all the therapy centres in West Germany, Austria, East Germany and German-speaking Switzerland made clinical and radiophysical contributions. The second part of the Symposium consisted mainly of talks and discussions on large-field irradiation, more precisely half-body and sequential partial body irradiation. This topic was chosen because this type of therapy is scarcely practised at all, particularly in West Germany, whereas in the United States, East Germany, Switzerland and a number of other countries it has long since become one of the established methods. The last talk at the Symposium explained clinical and radiophysical aspects of whole-skin irradiation. Here too, one was impressed by the wide diversity of the equipment and methods of irradiation used which, nevertheless, all demonstrated satisfactory practical solutions in their common aim of distributing the dose as homogeneously as possible. (orig./MG)