Practical and technical key challenges in head and neck adaptive radiotherapy: The GORTEC point of view.

Anatomical variations occur during head and neck (H&N) radiotherapy (RT) treatment. These variations may result in underdosage to the target volume or overdosage to the organ at risk. Replanning during the treatment course can be triggered to overcome this issue.

[Overview of adaptive radiotherapy in 2019: From implementation to clinical use].

Intensity modulated radiotherapy combined with image guided radiotherapy has led to increase the precision of external beam radiotherapy. However, intra or inter-fraction anatomical variations are frequent during the treatment course and can cause under-dosing of the target volume and/or over-dosing of the organs at risk. Several adaptive radiotherapy (ART) strategies can be defined to compensate these anatomical variations.