Incidence of late rectal bleeding in high-dose conformal radiotherapy of prostate cancer using equivalent uniform dose–based and dose–volume–based normal tissue complication probability models

Purpose Accurate modelling of rectal complications based on DVH data is necessary to allow safe dose escalation in radiotherapy of prostate cancer. We applied different EUD- and dose-volume based NTCP models to rectal wall DVHs and follow-up data of 319 prostate cancer patients in order to identify the dosimetric factors most predictive for grade 2 or higher rectal bleeding.