Radiotherapy employing three fractions in each day over a continuous period of 12 days.

During recent years schemes of radiotherapy incorporating multiple treatments in one day have been introduced into the clinic. These can lead to a reduction in the overall duration of treatment (accelerated fractionation), an increase in the number of fractions in the same overall time (hyperfractionation), or a combination of both (Fowler, 1984). Two to five treatments have been given each day from Monday to Friday for 1, 2 or more weeks (Svoboda, 1978; Van der Schueren et al, 1985; Wang, 1985). It has usually been found necessary to reduce the individual dose increment from the conventional 1.8–2 Gy to between 1 Gy and 1.6 Gy but, even then, immediate reactions have prevented most workers from achieving a satisfactory total dose without interruption. Commonly, a split-course technique is employed with a rest period of 2–4 weeks to allow normal tissue reactions to settle before further radiotherapy is given. Retrospective comparisons in head and neck cancer have given improved results (Wang, 1985) but ra...