Radiation oncology had a busy week on LinkedIn, with updates from across the field: medical physics, education, technology, palliative care, screening, reirradiation, bone metastases, and FLASH radiotherapy.
What stood out most was how practical many of these posts were. They were not only about new papers or meetings, but about the everyday work behind the field: teaching colleagues, improving workflows, building multidisciplinary teams, choosing better endpoints, and making treatments more useful for patients.
This week also highlighted how connected the field has become. Clinical practice, research, education, industry collaboration, and patient-centered care are increasingly shaping each other.
Here are some radiation oncology posts worth catching up on last week.
Shinobu Kumagai – Medical Physicist at Teikyo University Hospital
【Clinical Practice, Research, and Education: Three Paths】
As medical physicists gain experience, many of us eventually face an important question:
Where should we focus our careers?Although these appear to be different career paths, I have come to believe that they are inseparable.
Our profession requires us to continuously evaluate emerging technologies, introduce them into clinical practice, and ensure they are implemented safely and effectively.That single process naturally encompasses clinical practice, research, and education.
Clinical practice reveals the questions. Research seeks the answers. Education shares what we have learned.Recently, I have been given more opportunities to teach medical physicists through workshops and educational programs. Teaching has reminded me that expertise alone is not enough.
To teach effectively, we must organize our knowledge, clinical experience, and decision-making processes into a structure that others can understand, apply, and eventually improve upon.
At the same time, I believe that education only becomes truly meaningful when it is grounded in real clinical practice.The successes, the failures, the uncertainties, and even the frustrations we experience in our daily work are what give educational content its authenticity. Without that foundation, education risks becoming theory disconnected from reality.
That is also why I write on LinkedIn almost every day. These posts are not simply records of my work.
They are reflections on the questions, challenges, and ideas that emerge from everyday clinical practice.Perhaps one day, these reflections will help another medical physicist solve a problem, approach a challenge differently, or simply realize they are not facing it alone.
If that happens, then sharing them has already been worthwhile.#MedicalPhysics
#Radiotherapy
#ClinicalPractice
#Research
#Education
#KnowledgeSharing
#RadiationTherapy
#ClinicalWorkflow
Virve Sarja – Head of Varian EMEA & Executive Vice President, Siemens Healthineers
On Friday, I was honored to be in Freiburg to celebrate the opening of the Technology Innovation Laboratory (TIL) at Universitätsklinikum Freiburg. It’s exciting to see the vision behind this unique collaboration become reality.
What makes the TIL particularly compelling is the environment it creates. By bringing together clinicians, physicists, engineers, and researchers, it provides a platform to accelerate innovation, translate ideas into clinical practice, and advance the next generation of cancer care.
This is the kind of collaboration that drives meaningful progress. When healthcare providers, academia, and industry work together around a shared purpose, we can elevate healthcare, move innovation further and faster, and create greater value for patients and care teams alike.
I look forward to seeing the discoveries, collaborations, and innovations that will emerge from this unique ecosystem and the impact they will have on the future of patient care.
Thank you to Prof. Dr. Anca-L. Grosu,Prof. Dr. Dimos Baltas, Prof. Dr. Frederik Wenz, Prof. Dr. Lutz Hein, and Regierungspräsident Carsten Gabbert for making the day possible.
Aidan Leong – Group Manager – RT Education and Training at Icon Group
Looking forward to attending ESTRO Meets Asia 2026 next month in Singapore and connecting with colleagues across the Asia-Pacific region.
I’m excited to be presenting work from my role with the University of Otago on the design and implementation of AI learning agents to support postgraduate radiation therapy education.
It’s also fantastic to have colleagues from Icon Group sharing work at the meeting:
>Cushla Edwards on semi-automated offline adaptive radiation therapy for head and neck patients.
>Laura Young on culturally responsive radiation therapy training in Indonesia.European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO)
Icon Cancer Centre – Australia & New Zealand
Icon Cancer Centre – ASEAN#ESTROMeetsAsia #RadiationTherapy #RadiotherapyEducation #ArtificialIntelligence #Research #PostgraduateEducation
Carri Glide-Hurst – Associate Chair and Director, Radiation Oncology Physics at University of Wisconsin-Madison, Tenured Professor, Bhudatt Paliwal Endowed Professor
Big congrats to University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Bruce Thomadsen for winning the 2026 Coolidge Gold Medal—one the highest honors possible in #MedPhys! His 50-year career has been defined by major innovations in patient safety and brachytherapy as well as many decades of American Association of Physicists in Medicine service.
During his lovely speech at our University of Wisconsin Department of Medical Physics #AAPMCOMP2026 event, he highlighted the opportunities and advancements made possible through the rich department history while encouraging us all to mentor and grow the next generation of medical physics leaders & innovators. 💫
Congratulations to Bruce on this exceptional and well‑deserved honor! #OnWisconsin!
Bartek Tomasik – MD PhD, Radiation Oncologist at Gdański Uniwersytet Medyczny (Medical University of Gdańsk)
Happy to share the publication of the MULTIPREVENT study protocol in Public Health
This project builds on many years of #lung #cancer #screening experience in Gdańsk. Long before #LDCT screening became a central part of European cancer policy, the Gdańsk team was already developing organised screening pathways, prospective cohorts, imaging protocols and long-term follow-up strategies. Today, this work is evolving into something broader.
#MULTIPREVENT asks whether a lung cancer screening examination can become a platform for integrated prevention. By combining low-dose chest CT with #spirometry, #cardiovascular and #metabolic #biomarkers, #genetic profiling, #radiomics and #AI-based modelling, we aim to assess not only lung cancer risk, but also #COPD, #cardiovascular disease, #osteoporosis, #diabetes and other smoking-related conditions.
The study follows participants from the earlier MOLTEST-BIS cohort over more than a decade, integrating imaging, clinical, biochemical and genetic data to develop practical tools for personalised risk prediction and prevention.
This project is the result of long-term planning, persistence and a clear scientific vision developed by Prof. Witold Rzyman and his team (https://lnkd.in/dr_9zDNH). Their consistent work has made Gdański Uniwersytet Medyczny (Medical University of Gdańsk) one of the pioneers of lung cancer screening in Poland and Europe, and has now created the foundation for moving from disease-specific screening towards integrated prevention of multimorbidity.
A publication is an important milestone, but the real goal is larger: to make every screening examination provide as much meaningful preventive information as possible.
#EarlyDetection #Prevention #PublicHealth #Multimorbidity #NCDs
David Palma – Professor, Western University | Radiation Oncologist, London Health Sciences Centre | Clinician-Scientist, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research
New data from the ORATOR trials: 60 vs 70 Gy in HPV+ patients.⭐
At 1 year, in 60 Gy cohort:
– Change in MDADI scores 7 points better
– Many other PROs better: fatigue, nausea/vomiting, appetite, pain, xerostomia, sticky saliva, coughing.Could 60 Gy be a better choice, if QOL is better and OS is the same, even if PFS is a bit worse based on HN005?
David Pasquier – Radiation Oncologist at Université de Lille
Very useful review by Finbar Slevin, from the reirradiation Collaborative group (Recog): Reirradiation of locally recurrent prostate Cancer: a review of prospective evidence and delineation and planning strategies.
While the literature is dominated by retrospective data, this article examines prospective planning data and constraints. SFRO – Société Française de Radiothérapie Oncologique European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO) Centre Oscar Lambret UFR3S – Département de Médecine – Université de Lille
Yolandi Muller – Operational Physics Leader Region Turkey, India, MEA. Elekta (PTY) Ltd
Another successful Elekta Linear accelerator physics, MAQA and VMATQA course held in Cape Town.
The knowledge shared when meeting in person is often overlooked.
We had a diverse crowd. Botswana, Burkina Faso, Ghana, South Africa and Tanzania.Thanks Nadeem Khan DHA, MS, DABR, FACRO, FAHM, FHIAS, FACMPE for your expertise and sharing your knowledge.
Shing Fung Lee – Consultant, Radiation Oncology at National University Cancer Institute, Singapore
I am pleased to share that our Editorial, “Beyond pain response: rethinking endpoints in radiotherapy trials for bone metastases”, has been published in the European Journal of Cancer.
The Editorial builds on our recent international Delphi consensus on SBRT endpoints in bone metastases. While pain response remains central in palliative radiotherapy, we discuss why contemporary clinical trials should also consider treatment intent, local tumour control, skeletal-related events, function, health-related quality of life, and prevention outcomes when selecting endpoints.
Many thanks to all my coauthors for their thoughtful comments, expertise, and collaboration throughout the development of this work. It was a privilege to work with such an outstanding international group.
The article is available (the link is at comment):#RadiationOncology #BoneMetastases #PalliativeCare #SupportiveCare
Pierre-Gabriel Montay-Gruel – Iridium Netwerk / Visiting Professor University of Antwerp
Happy to share our latest publication in Radiotherapy and Oncology!
In this study, we investigated the transcriptomic changes induced in the lung by FLASH radiotherapy, providing new insights into the biological mechanisms underlying the differential normal tissue response observed after ultra-high dose rate irradiation.
A huge congratulations to Adrien Arrigo for driving this project forward, and many thanks to all co-authors for their contributions and collaboration: Louize Brants, Verdi Vanreusel, Piet Stevens, Paul Meijnders, Dirk Verellen, Philip Poortmans, An Wouters and Alessia Gasparini
I would also like to acknowledge the anonymous reviewers, whose thorough, constructive, and insightful comments significantly strengthened the manuscript and truly contributed to improving the quality of the final work.
You can read the paper here
#FLASHRadiotherapy #Radiobiology #RadiationOncology #Transcriptomics #LungBiology #CancerResearch #ESTRO