Steepness of the radiation dose-response curve for dose-per-fraction escalation keeping the number of fractions fixed

Abstract

Clinically, there is growing interest in strategies for intensifying radiation therapy by escalating the dose per fraction. This paper considers the steepness of the dose-response curve in this case. The steepness of a radiation dose-response curve is most conveniently quantified by the normalized dose-response gradient, gamma. Under the assumption of a linear-quadratic dose-effect model, a simple analytical relationship is derived between the gamma-value for a dose-response curve generated by varying the total dose while keeping the number of fractions constant, i.e. escalating the dose per fraction, and the gamma-value for a dose-response curve generated by varying the total dose while keeping the dose per fraction constant. This formulation is compared with clinical dose-response data from the literature and shown to be in good agreement with the observations. Some implications of this formulation for non-uniform dose distributions delivered using 3D conformal radiotherapy or intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) are briefly discussed.