Relative effectiveness of 12-hourly fractionation and a non-uniform x-ray schedule in the optimum fractionation of C3H mouse mammary tumours.

In previous experiments the highest proportions of tumours controlled for 150 days at a particular level of skin reaction were obtained with five or nine fractions of X rays in nine or ten days respectively. Poor results were obtained for the same numbers of fractions given in 4 or 18 days respectively. The present work reports results of three "non-standard" fractionation schedules: two with equal doses given at 12-hour intervals over four or nine days and one with eight decreasing doses given at decreasing intervals over 11 days. The two 12-hour interval schedules gave results which were equal to the best obtained by any other schedule tested. The 8F/11d non-uniform schedule, however, gave mediocre results in spite of being close to the previously optimum overall time. When these results are compared with previously published results from the same tumour system two, phases of optimum fractionation are demonstrated. At short overall times, up to four days, the situation is finely balanced, so that fraction size and interval matter greatly and results of the schedules vary from good to bad. At longer overall times, of nine days or more in these tumours, the response is no longer so variable. Eighteen days (two to three times the average volume doubling time) is too long for any successful treatment with this system, presumably because of proliferation in the tumour.