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21 years of Biologically Effective Dose

Open access
Fowler, J F·2010·The British Journal of Radiology

Abstract

In 1989 the British Journal of Radiology published a review proposing the term biologically effective dose (BED), based on linear quadratic cell survival in radiobiology. It aimed to indicate quantitatively the biological effect of any radiotherapy treatment, taking account of changes in dose-per-fraction or dose rate, total dose and (the new factor) overall time. How has it done so far? Acceptable clinical results have been generally reported using BED, and it is in increasing use, although sometimes mistaken for "biologically equivalent dose", from which it differs by large factors, as explained here. The continuously bending nature of the linear quadratic curve has been questioned but BED has worked well for comparing treatments in many modalities, including some with large fractions. Two important improvements occurred in the BED formula. First, in 1999, high linear energy transfer (LET) radiation was included; second, in 2003, when time parameters for acute mucosal tolerance were proposed, optimum overall times could then be "triangulated" to optimise tumour BED and cell kill. This occurs only when both early and late BEDs meet their full constraints simultaneously. New methods of dose delivery (intensity modulated radiation therapy, stereotactic body radiation therapy, protons, tomotherapy, rapid arc and cyberknife) use a few large fractions and obviously oppose well-known fractionation schedules. Careful biological modelling is required to balance the differing trends of fraction size and local dose gradient, as explained in the discussion "How Fractionation Really Works". BED is now used for dose escalation studies, radiochemotherapy, brachytherapy, high-LET particle beams, radionuclide-targeted therapy, and for quantifying any treatments using ionising radiation.

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Metadata

Authors
Fowler, J. F.
Venue
The British Journal of Radiology
Published
2010-07
Volume
83
Issue
991
Pages
554-568
ISSN
  • 0007-1285 (ISSN-L)
  • 1748-880X
OpenAlex
W2129299671
Cited by
639
References
36
FWCI
16.32
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
green

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: 21 years of Biologically Effective Dose. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1259/bjr/31372149
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Fowler, J. F. (2010). 21 years of Biologically Effective Dose. The British Journal of Radiology. https://doi.org/10.1259/bjr/31372149

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

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