Is there an influence of overall treatment time in the response of lung to fractionated radiotherapy?

Mathematical modelling in radiobiology is a usefuel tool for clinical research and in particular so when application of a model to a spcific problem is undertaken for hypothesis testing, i.e. to elucidate to what extent a given data set is compatible with a given biological hypothesis. Unfortunately, the current accuracy of models, such as the linear-quadratic (LQ) model, in predicting outcome of treatment is normally too poor to warrant direct numerical application in clinical practice. Therefore, the prime goal should be to propose and test the importance of various biological mechanisms, and secondly, to quantitate their magnitude and relative importance. The lesson learned when data are incompatible with the model will often be more important than that learned when data sets are consistent with the model. (author). 7 refs