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Abstract

Radiotherapy outcome of poorly oxygenated tumours is currently limited. Mathematical models describing the oxygen-dependent tumour response may help to optimise treatment schedules and improve radiotherapy outcome. The tumour response model (TRM) predicts the spatiotemporal development of tumours based on radiation dose, microscopic oxygenation distributions, proliferation of tumour cells, angiogenesis, tumour growth, resorption of dead tumour cells and tumour shrinkage. In this thesis, the TRM was validated and its input parameters were adjusted to reproduce experimental dose-response curves of three rat prostate carcinoma sublines. The validation confirmed the correct implementation of the main TRM components and the dependence on input parameters were consistent with underlying principles. The adjustment to experimental data could only be achieved after changing the assumption on oxygen consumption of radiation-inactivated tumour cells. The adjusted intrinsic fractionation parameter,α/ß , was smaller than the experimentally obtained value, revealing the impact of additional biological processes on the tumour response to fractionated irradiations. Additionally, available experimental α/ß and α values were compatible with the values adjusted in the TRM. This study demonstrates the ability of the TRM to reproduce experimental in-vivo tumour response data.