Volume 50, Issue S1 p. 40-44
REVIEW ARTICLE

A journey to understand SFRT

Sha Chang

Corresponding Author

Sha Chang

Department of Radiation Oncology, University of North Carolina, School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

Correspondence

Sha Chang, Department of Radiation Oncology, University of North Carolina, School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 27599, USA.

Email: [email protected]

Search for more papers by this author
First published: 18 February 2023
Citations: 2

Abstract

This article tells the story of a medical physicist's journey to understand SFRT which started by accident more than 15 years ago. For decades, clinical application and preclinical research have shown that spatially fractionated radiation therapy (SFRT) can achieve a magically high therapeutic index. However, only recently, SFRT received well-deserved attention from mainstream radiation oncology. Today, our understanding of SFRT remains limited, which significantly hinders the advancement of SFRT for patient care. In this article, the author intends to shed some light on several important but unanswered SFRT research questions, including what is the essence of SFRT, which dosimetric parameters have clinical relevance and which do not, how does SFRT spare normal tissue but not tumor, and why radiobiological models developed for conventional radiation therapy may not be suitable for SFRT.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT

I am the founder of EmpowerRT, LLC (Social enterprise) and co-founder of NuVeta Radiotherapy, Inc.