Evidence for an influence of overall treatment time on radiotherapeutic - outcome in different tumor entities

Background and Method: The effect of overall treatment time on therapeutic outcome was analyzed comparing the randomized trials on accelerated fractionation for the different tumor entities. Only studies using radiotherapy as the definitive locoregional treatment modality were included. Results and Conclusion: Randomized studies were performed for squamous cell carinomas of the head and neck region as well as for small-cell and non-small-cell carcinomas of the lung. These studies showed, that locoregional control can be improved by accelerated fractionation in comparison to conventional fractionation with the same total dose. With the same antitumor effectiveness of both fractionation schedules, total dose can be reduced using accelerated fractionation. (orig.)