Modelling of late side-effects following cranial proton beam therapy

Highlights: • Availability of proton therapy is limited requiring individual treatment selection strategies. • Selection strategies may be based on NTCP models, some of which do not yet exist. • In a multicentre approach, NCTP models for late side effects of cranial proton therapy were developed and validated. • Dose-response relations were found for alopecia and hearing impairment in a training/validation setting. • Analyses of the pooled cohort revealed dose-dependence for memory impairment, fatigue, and dry eye syndrome. The limited availability of proton beam therapy (PBT) requires individual treatment selection strategies that can be based on normal tissue complication probability (NTCP) models. We developed and externally validated NTCP models for common late side-effects following PBT in brain tumour patients to optimise patients' quality of life.