Programme

Overview: This pitch session explores the next frontiers of medical physics research in 5 key areas of radiotherapy. Speakers will present future research directions on: - new treatment units’ development, - dose calculation and optimization as dynamic, biology-driven tasks expanded to incorporate emerging synergies like theranostics or dose-to-blood calculation. - response modelling to shift from dose-based toward response-guided therapy including spatial, temporal and biological information, - new detector developments and dosimetry audits - optimizing the use and integration of imaging data in effective longitudinal models and decision making. This session will inspire the audience to develop bold new research ideas for multi-modality approaches that can transform the radiotherapy landscape.

Overview: The choice of physical quantity for dose reporting in radiotherapy is crucial: it must correlate with clinical outcomes, be easily communicated to support consistent practice, and be accurately calculated or measured. Traditionally, dose to water fulfilled this role, as radiation doses were derived from measurements in water. However, modern dose calculation methods—such as Monte Carlo algorithms, linear Boltzmann solvers, and convolution/superposition techniques—now allow different dose definitions, creating uncertainty. This session will review recent recommendations clarifying these definitions, explain their historical context, discuss remaining challenges, and address quality assurance requirements for the reported dose quantity.

Overview: ESTRO uniquely unites the photon and particle therapy communities, offering a rare setting for true cross-fertilization. Yet, despite sharing many conceptual challenges, both fields often evolve in partial isolation. This session explores how advances, from treatment planning to imaging and adaptation, can be translated across modalities and extend their impact beyond their original context. Progress does not follow a single trajectory: each community has driven distinct developments that remain underexploited by the other. By making these complementarities explicit, the session aims to foster a more integrated perspective—where radiotherapy advances not in isolated islands, but through deliberate exchange.

Overview: AI tools in radiation oncology are rapidly evolving, with growing clinical deployment across imaging, planning, and decision support. However, their use is now closely tied to compliance with increasingly strict regulatory frameworks such as the EU AI Act, EU Medical Device Regulation (MDR), as well as FDA guidelines further afield. This session will focus on the regulatory landscape for AI in radiotherapy, with emphasis on what clinical physicists need to know to ensure quality and compliance. Topics include risk classification, clinical evidence requirements, post-market surveillance, and the role of physicists in supporting conformity assessments. The goal is to provide attendees with a clear understanding of how QA intersects with legal and safety obligations, and what actions are needed to ensure that AI systems are fit-for-purpose in a regulated environment.

Overview: It has been, for many years, the aim of many medical physicists in our field to ensure precision of our treatments. Delineation, treatment planning, image guidance, machine QA, plan QA all seem to aim for the highest precision achievable. Indeed, in recent years, the precision of our treatments has become excellent. However, still, a lot of effort is spent improving or maintaining this precision. Simultaneously, healthcare costs are rising, our workforce is under pressure and we can only spent our time once. Is it still worthwhile to spent resources in trying to improve the precision of our treatments, or have we reached a plateau where ‘good’ is actually ‘good enough’? Should we continue to pursue the highest precision, or is it enough to be “as precise as reasonably achievable”?