PhD Defence An-Sofie Els Verrijssen

Keywords: Rectal cancer, radiotherapy boost, margin concepts 
 

"Novel Approaches to Radiotherapy Boosting for Rectal Cancer"

Radiotherapy (in addition to surgery) is a tool used to improve locoregional control for patients with rectal cancer. In recent years radiotherapy has also increasingly been applied in order to avoid surgery. An-Sofie looked deeper into the subject of radiotherapy dose escalation within radiotherapy for rectal cancer. The first part of the thesis gave an overview in radiotherapy treatment trends and studies over the last years. The second part of the thesis delves deeper into local dose escalation, specifically in terms of toxicity but also whether a safety margin is necessary around macroscopic tumor when delivering a local radiotherapy boost to the tumor. The third part of the thesis dives deeper into intraoperative radiotherapy for patients with more advanced tumors, with the goal of improving local control for these patients.

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