Main description:

The move towards individually-optimised treatments, using knowledge of normal tissue and tumour radiosensitivity, proliferation rates, etc, in combination with three-dimensional planning, will need mathematical modelling to achieve its full potential. This modelling process will also be capable of helping develop a rational and cost-effective use of resources.Amongst radiation oncologists and medical physicists there is a need for a greater understanding of the scope, applications and limitations of radiobiological modelling, particularly in complex situations that include multiple treatment variables, the respective influence of which are difficult to separate out by randomised trials without using radiobiologically-based analysis.In future there will be increasing use of modelling in practical situations, including treatment gap corrections, normal tissue tolerance predictions, optimisation of therapy determined by predictive assays, multi-modality schedule design, the simulation of clinical trials, testing contemporaneous medico-legal problems and teaching general principals of radiotherapy.