External radiotherapy – hystory, advantages, perspectives

A brief history of external beam radiotherapy. Review of current methods – conformal, stereotactic, hadron irradiation. An analysis of the cost of modern methods of distance irradiation, a comparison of treatment costs and long-term survival of cancer patients. The growth rate of malignant tumors is the result of proliferation and cell loss. It is shown that the change of the cell loss factor by 3–5% fundamentally changing the natural history of the disease and its outcome. Formulates the concept of balance-therapy – maintaining the balance between proliferation and cell loss by conservative undamaged methods. The results of the application of various methods of balance-therapy are presented.