Rome, Italy, 6-11 September 2025
Course Report

My name is Carl Magnus Nilsson, and I am a medical physicist from Sweden. I have worked for about 17 years in radiotherapy, mostly with photon therapy, but for the past few years, I have been working at the Skandion clinic with proton therapy.

This is my third ESTRO course. I wanted to attend it to get more in-depth knowledge in the field of radiobiology and learn what is currently happening in the field.

Before coming to the course, I was afraid that the biological part would be too complicated for me to understand as a physicist. But thanks to the pedagogical teachers, all parts of the course were on a very good level.

The course contained a good mix of clinical examples, physics, research, and biology, with time for discussion and questions. The teachers and ESTRO staff created a very open environment and encouraged the participants to participate actively and ask questions.

One of the talks I liked the most was about stem cells. I learned a lot about types of stem cells, cancer stem cells, biological imaging, where the stem cells are located, sparing techniques, etc.

The clinical cases were important, because they showed situations that we in the clinic see very often. The course gave us more confidence in handling these situations as well as a background into why we do certain things and pitfalls we should be aware of.

From a medical physicist’s perspective, I found it interesting to learn where the data comes from, uncertainties and assumptions, and where we are going in the future.

The course gave me the necessary knowledge to be able to implement a script in order to compare radiotherapy treatment plans from a biological perspective. It also offered a deeper understanding of what radiotherapy does when applied with other modalities in the treatment of cancer.

A benefit of attending the course for me was meeting all the other attendees. There were people from all over the world, with different backgrounds, interests, and work experiences. I met doctors, nurses, biologists, and physicists, who inspired me to work on new projects now that I am back at my work, and I will keep in contact with many of them.

I can recommend attendance on this course to any person working with radiotherapy or who is interested in radiobiology. It is very interesting from so many perspectives, and I learned so much and met so many wonderful people. It is a good course for all staff groups and students, because we learned why we do certain things, how to compensate for gaps, what to be careful about, and what is coming up in the future.

I want to give a big thank you to ESTRO for offering this course, to all the attendees who created a good discussion, and to everyone who shared their knowledge and smiles.