During the past four decades knowledge about biological effects of
ionizing radiations on mammalian cells, normal tissues and tumours has
increased enormously and has enabled radiotherapists to obtain a better
insight into the advantages and disadvantages of cancer treatments with
modified regimens of irradiations and combinations with chemotherapeutic
agents. Even for the older scientists and clinicians who have wit-
nessed all these developments and have contributed to the vast amount of
information, it is difficult to integrate this knowledge and to apply it
in their daily work. For younger workers it is often difficult to select
the important main concepts and results from the overwhelming number of
publications. It is evident that a book which provides an integrated
view of basic and applied radiation oncology can be of great value to
students, scientists and, most importantly, to clinicians who can devote
only part of their time to the task of understanding the radiobiological
background of their application of radiation in cancer treatment. This
book "Radiation Oncology" is written by a radiotherapist who has for a
long time participated in the integration of basic knowledge and
clinical experience. He has selected radiobiological information which
is considered important to radiotherapy and in the description and
interpretation of normal tissue tolerance and tumour eradication
probability, he illustrates how basic knowledge can be applied
clinically.