Studies show a great dependency between the amount of FDG uptake in the tumor and its aggressiveness. The higher the uptake, the more aggressive the tumor. For this reason, giving higher dose to the tumor could probably be the key to better treatment. However it’s not straightforward to induce a high dose to the tumor without harming the normal tissue with today’s treatment planning systems (TPS).In order to surpass this obstacle dose painting by numbers (DPBN) is proposed.
This method employs direct use of the digital PET images in the radiotherapy planning, where higher radiation doses are given only to the parts of the tumor showing high image intensity, where the aggressive disease is located.