Fractionation parameters for human tissues and tumors.
Time-dose factors such as fractionation sensitivity (alpha/beta) can sometimes be estimated from clinical data, when there is a wide variation in dose, fraction size, treatment time, etc. This report summarizes estimates of fractionation parameters derived from clinical results. Consistent with the animal data, alpha/beta is higher for acutely responding than for late-responding normal tissues. While many human tumors seem to be characterized by high alpha/beta values, there are exceptions (e.g. melanomas). Repair kinetics may be slower in human than in rodent skin and mucosa, but there are no hard and fast estimates of the repair halftime. Regeneration in head and neck tumors is equivalent to a daily dose of 1 Gy or less, while in the mucosa it is equivalent to approximately 1.8 Gy/day.
Thames
H D
HD
Department of Biomathematics, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston 77030.
Bentzen
S M
SM
Turesson
I
I
Overgaard
M
M
van den Bogaert
W
W
D004260:DNA Repair; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D011829:Radiation Dosage; D011836:Radiation Tolerance; D011879:Radiotherapy Dosage; D014022:Tissue Survival / Q000528:radiation effects*