European clinical trials in paediatric radiation oncology

Abstract

Radiotherapy is an important part of multimodality treatment protocols for around a third of children and young people with malignant disease.1 Although ionising radiation has been available in some form for around a century, technology has been continuously refined and developed.2 Together with a better understanding of pathology and molecular biology of cancer through sequential clinical trials, improved radiation technology has led to a transformation of radiotherapy in the past few decades. Paediatric radiation oncology has also evolved and taken advantage of these technical advances.