title: Radiation therapy for colorectal cancer.
abstract: The role of radiation therapy in the management of colorectal cancer has become more clearly defined as the number of clinical studies has grown. It is now evident that radiation is capable of sterilizing subclinical deposits of cancer at doses tolerable by adjacent normal tissues, and to a lesser extent, these doses can control more bulky cancers. The integration of radiation and chemotherapy has already led to some improvement in survival rates in the adjuvant treatment of rectal cancer. The further development of such combinations seems likely to improve tumor control and survival rates in many stages of cancer. In the next decade, it is also likely that there will be refinement of the use of radiation through better understanding of the biology of colorectal cancer, perhaps supplemented by the development of predictive assays that can guide both the selection of patients for treatment and the choice of the most effective radiation schedule.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: B J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Cummings
mesh_terms: D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000532:radiotherapy* / Q000601:surgery; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D006801:Humans; D016896:Treatment Outcome