Biology-guided adaptive radiotherapy (BiGART) - more than a vision?

Acta Oncologica can this year celebrate its 50 years jubilee as the leading Scandinavian journal in oncology. As a part of this celebration the 11th Acta Oncologica Symposium was held in Aarhus, Denmark, on June 11 – 13, 2013. The symposium was dedicated to aspects of Biology-Guided Adaptive Radiotherapy (BiGART). The 172 participants of the meeting included physicians, physicists, radiobiologists and other scientists with an active interest in this specifi c area. The format included invited presentations, proffered papers and discussion rounds. More than 100 abstracts were submitted to the conference. Acta Oncologica has sponsored scientifi c symposia since 1989. The aim of this activity has been to focus on oncological issues of emerging interest, preferably with a multi-disciplinary or multi-professional approach. The current series of Acta Oncologica meetings with focus on radiotherapy (RT) have encompassed stereotactic body RT (SBRT) [1], image-guided RT (IGRT) [2,3], adaptive RT (BiGART) [4] and particle RT [5]. Other topics have over the years included sentinel lymph node biopsy in breast cancer, prostate cancer, normal tissue morbidity, breast cancer, and rehabilitation. The goal of BiGART is adaptation of RT in time and space based on biological and anatomical features, maximizing the therapeutic ratio for each individual patient. Key topics for the BiGART2013 conference included