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PubMed · 11398608

Split-course radiotherapy: where do we stand?

H H Dubben·A Krüll·H P Beck-Bornholdt
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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Split-course radiotherapy is only rarely applied in curative radiotherapy and there might be a number of arguments to believe that continuous radiotherapy is superior to split-course treatment. In order to point out the evidence current treatment practice is based on, the available randomized trials and some prominent retrospective analyses on split-course radiotherapy were critically assessed. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The analysis of the clinical results was based on published data only. Publications were searched in a Medline database. RESULTS: Assessment of 13 randomized trials, including the data of 2,112 patients, revealed no significant difference between continuous-course and split-course radiotherapy. Astonishingly, the outcome of 77 radiotherapy studies on split-course, most of which are retrospective, seems to depend on the year of publication, suggesting publication bias. CONCLUSIONS: No clinically relevant difference between continuous and split-course radiotherapy could be found. This, of course, does not proof that there are indeed no differences but the data do not allow to draw clear-cut conclusions in favor of or against split-course radiotherapy due to methodological shortcomings of the studies.

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Dose Fractionation, RadiationEvidence-Based MedicineHumansMEDLINENeoplasmsRandomized Controlled Trials as TopicTreatment OutcomeComparative StudyJournal ArticleReview

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H H Dubben, A Krüll, H P Beck-Bornholdt. 2001. Split-course radiotherapy: where do we stand?. https://doi.org/10.1007/pl00002402

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