Adaptative radiotherapy: The case for MRI-guided radiotherapy

The concept of image-guided radiotherapy benefits from the development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) associated with different capacities of tissue analyses such as spectroscopy or diffusion analysis. The production of devices allowing the repositioning of patients through MRI represents a strong added value without delivering any additional dose to the patient while the optimization of the adaptative strategies are facilitated by a better contrast of the soft tissues compared to the scanner. The advantages of MRI are well demonstrated for brain tumours, head and neck carcinomas, pelvic tumors, mediastinal malignancies, gastrointestinal tract diseases. Adaptative radiotherapy inaugurates a new area of radiotherapy with different modalities. Several technological solutions are provided or discussed allowing the patients to benefit from thses new technologies as soon as possible. (C) 2016 Societe francaise de radiotherapie oncologique (SFRO). Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.