OVERVIEW

Basic Clinical Radiobiology is organized by European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO) and will be held from Sep 04 - 08, 2021.

Target Audience:
The course is aimed at:
• Trainees in radiotherapy
• Radiation oncologists who lack basic radiobiological science or who want to update their knowledge (i.e. for CME)
• Medical physicists who wish to familiarize themselves with this field
• Physicians from other disciplines administering ionising radiation
• Radiation therapists (RTTs).

Course Aim:
The course aims to:
• Provide an introduction to radiation biology as applied to radiotherapy
• Cover the basic mechanisms of cell death/survival and the radiation response of tumours and normal tissues
• Explain the formulae of tissue tolerance
• Describe the biological basis for current approaches to the improvement of radiotherapy including novel fractionation schemes, retreatment, IMRT, modification of hypoxia, hadron therapy, combined radiotherapy/chemotherapy and biological modifiers of tumour and normal tissue effects.

Course Content:
• A series of basic lectures introducing molecular and clinical radiobiology
• Mechanisms and models or radiation cell killing
• The linear-quadratic approach to fractionation
• Molecular basis of radiation response
• Radiobiology and tolerance of normal tissues to (re)treatment
• Alternative fractionation schedules in radiotherapy
• Tumour hypoxia and the microenvironment
• Combined radiotherapy and chemotherapy
• The volume and dose-rate effect in radiotherapy
• Biological response modifiers (tumours, normal tissues) and molecular approaches to therapy
• Protons and other particles in radiotherapy
• Radiation-induced malignancies.

Learning Outcomes:
By the end of this course participants should be able to:
• Understand the biology of how ionizing radiation is able to effectively treat cancer
• Distinguish radiotherapy and its advantages from other cancer therapies
• Have the essential knowledge of radiobiology necessary for qualifying examinations.