Clinical experience of head-and-neck cancer IMRT with serial tomotherapy.

New radiotherapy planning and delivery techniques are undergoing rapid progress and change due to computer hardware and software technologies that have led to the development of sophisticated 3-dimensional (3D) radiation treatment planning and computer-controlled radiation therapy delivery systems. Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) is the most recent and advanced form of external beam radiation therapy often used to perform 3D conformal radiotherapy. It represents one of the most important technical advances in radiotherapy. IMRT has the potential to achieve a much higher degree of target conformity and normal tissue sparing than most other treatment techniques, especially for target volumes at risk with complex shapes and concave regions such as head-and-neck cancer. In this review, we summarize our own IMRT treatment techniques with serial tomotherapy and our clinical experience with 126 patients with head-and-neck IMRT.