Session Item

Re-irradiation is a treatment that is being increasingly offered to patients for several reasons. Outcomes from initial treatment have been improving increasing the chances of developing a second malignancy, surveillance protocols are more commonplace and the radiotherapy technology has developed such that re-irradiation can be offered with significant sparing of normal tissue. There is a growing body of evidence that some patients have durable tumour control after re-irradiation. However, it is a high risk treatment with significant uncertainties.



The key concepts of re-irradiation which will be discussed in this talk include radiosensitivity in recurrent disease, uncertainties of dose summation/dose constraints/re-treatment dose, and patients’ attitude to re-irradiation.



This talk will review the evidence that informs the current debate about these concepts and discuss future work to further the field.