Radiotherapy and radiology for the quality of treatments and the harmonization of practices

The authors outline that new radiotherapy and radiology techniques (like conformational intensity modulated radiation therapy, modulated arc-therapy or stereotactic radiation therapy) require an improved treatment quality in terms of contouring. They comment the contribution of the different imagery techniques and their clinical implications for contouring quality, notably with respect to the concepts of target volumes (gross tumour volume or GTV, clinical target volume or CTV, internal target volume or ITV). They discuss the assessment of inter-variability in target volume contouring, comment the different contouring tools and the implemented means. They discuss the development of image networks within the frame of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer protocol. They evoke some innovating irradiation techniques and shared technical platforms, and discuss the use of hybrid techniques involving adaptive radiation therapy