title: Does variation in the in vitro cellular radiosensitivity explain the shallow clinical dose-control curve for malignant melanoma?
abstract: In radiotherapy, clinical dose-control curves are generally more shallow than what should be expected from in vitro dose-survival curves for human cells of the same histology. One possible explanation is that a considerable inter-tumor heterogeneity in radiosensitivity flattens out the presumably steep individual dose-control curves. This paper compares dose-control curves for malignant melanomas derived from clinical data with curves derived from in vitro cell-survival experiments. Although inter-tumour variability in the in vitro dose and fractionation sensitivity may explain parts of the discrepancy between the steepness of clinical and in vitro dose-control curves, the present calculation indicates that a considerable additional variability, undetected by current in vitro assays, must be assumed to exist in order to resolve the discrepancy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Physics, Radiumstationen, Aarhus, Denmark.
authors.forename: S M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Bentzen
authors.forename: H D
authors.initials: HD
authors.lastname: Thames
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Overgaard
mesh_terms: D002470:Cell Survival / Q000528:radiation effects*; D004307:Dose-Response Relationship, Radiation; D006801:Humans; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D008545:Melanoma / Q000473:pathology / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D008954:Models, Biological; D011379:Prognosis; D011836:Radiation Tolerance