Biological Planning for High‐Dose Rate Brachytherapy: Application to Cervical Cancer Treatment
Cervical cancer is slow-growing and in early stages may not have any symptoms. Successful treatment remains challenging and the mortality rate in the U.S. is high at about 35%. We describe novel biological treatment planning designs that incorporate functional PET information for targeted escalated dose delivery. Our study reveals improvement both in local tumor control and organs-at-risk toxicity, two competing and desirable goals that were previously thought to be unachievable simultaneously.