Abstract
Pretreatment potential doubling times (Tpot) of tumors have been rcported to correlate with outcome after radiotherapy in some trials but not in others. Almost all the individual trials have low patient numbers. Because of the potential importance of predictors in guiding radiation oncologists in their choice of schedule, the present meta-analysis was undertaken to better define the role of Tpot. All participating centres had carried out pretreatment Tpot analyses using In vivo labeling with either bromo- or iodo-deoxyuridine. Those involved include one large cooperative group (EORTC), plus centres in Denmark (Danish Cancer Soc. ICR, Aarhus), Sweden (Umea Univ), U.K. (Mt Vernon Hospital, Northwood), Italy (Nat. Inst. Cancer Res, Genova; Ospidale Multizonale, Varesi), France (Gustave-Roussy, Paris) and Egypt (Nat. Cancer Inst, Cairo). This analysis concerns head and neck cancer patients treated with radical radiotherapy only, with schedules lasting at least 6 weeks. The total number of patients analyzed is over 400. The analysis considers patients with diploid and aneuploid tumors separately, since Tpot estimates are more reliable in the latter. Data are being collected at the time of writing and the analysis is expected to be complete in August 1995.
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