Definition
Chemoradiotherapyrefers to the combination of a cytostatic drug and external beam irradiation and can be applied sequentially or concurrently. There are several arguments to combine both modalities. While radiotherapy is aimed at controlling the primary tumor, chemotherapy is used to eradicate distant (micro-) metastases (spatial cooperation). Both modalities may be active against different tumor cell populations (independent cell-killing effect). In addition, chemotherapy may synchronize cells in a vulnerable phase for radiotherapy, decrease repopulation after radiotherapy, and enhance reoxygenation. It was also thought that shrinking a tumor with chemotherapy first should be advantageous for radiotherapy. However, this concept has failed in most clinical trials, probably due to fast repopulation of tumor cells after cytoreduction with chemotherapy before the start of radiotherapy. In...
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References
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See Also
(2012) Adjuvant. In: Schwab M (ed) Encyclopedia of cancer, 3rd edn. Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg, p 75. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-16483-5_107
(2012) Anti-angiogenic drugs. In: Schwab M (ed) Encyclopedia of cancer, 3rd edn. Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg, pp 207–208. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-16483-5_302
(2012) Carboplatin. In: Schwab M (ed) Encyclopedia of cancer, 3rd edn. Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg, p 641. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-16483-5_833
(2012) Concurrent. In: Schwab M (ed) Encyclopedia of cancer, 3rd edn. Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg, p 965. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-16483-5_6821
(2012) EGFR. In: Schwab M (ed) Encyclopedia of cancer, 3rd edn. Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg, p 1211. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-16483-5_1828
(2012) Epirubicin. In: Schwab M (ed) Encyclopedia of cancer, 3rd edn. Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg, p 1291. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-16483-5_1955
(2012) Leucovorin. In: Schwab M (ed) Encyclopedia of cancer, 3rd edn. Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg, p 2005. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-16483-5_3321
(2012) Neoadjuvant. In: Schwab M (ed) Encyclopedia of cancer, 3rd edn. Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg, p 2472. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-16483-5_4003
(2012) 6,4-Photoproduct. In: Schwab M (ed) Encyclopedia of cancer, 3rd edn. Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg, p 2881. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-16483-5_4557
(2012) VEGF. In: Schwab M (ed) Encyclopedia of cancer, 3rd edn. Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg, p 3906. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-16483-5_6174
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Verheij, M., Bartelink, H. (2014). Chemoradiotherapy. In: Schwab, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Cancer. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27841-9_1074-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27841-9_1074-3
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