Technology has a pivotal role in the continuous development of radiotherapy. The long road toward modern 'high-tech' radiation oncology has been studded with discoveries and technological innovations that resulted from the interaction of various disciplines. In the last decades, a dramatic technology-driven revolution has hugely improved the capability of accurately and safely delivering complex-shaped dose distributions. This has contributed to many clinical improvements, such as the successful management of lung cancer and oligometastatic disease through stereotactic body radiotherapy. Technology-driven research is an active and lively field with promising potential in several domains, including image guidance, adaptive radiotherapy, integration of artificial intelligence, heavy-particle therapy, and 'flash' ultra-high dose-rate radiotherapy. The evolution toward personalized Oncology will deeply influence technology-driven research, aiming to integrate predictive models and omics analyses into fast and efficient solutions to deliver the best treatment for each single patient. Personalized radiation oncology will need affordable technological solutions for middle-/low-income countries, as these are expected to experience the highest increase of cancer incidence and mortality. Moreover, technology solutions for automation of commissioning, quality assurance, safety tests, image segmentation, and plan optimization will be required. Although a large fraction of cancer patients receive radiotherapy, this is certainly not reflected in the worldwide budget for radiotherapy research. Differently from the pharmaceutical companies-driven research, resources for research in radiotherapy are highly limited to equipment vendors, who can, in turn, initiate a limited number of collaborations with academic research centers. Thus, enhancement of investments in technology-driven radiotherapy research via public funds, national governments, and the European Union would have a crucial societal impact. It would allow for radiotherapy to further strengthen its role as a highly effective and cost-efficient cancer treatment modality, and it could facilitate a rapid and equalitarian large-scale transfer of technology to clinic, with direct impact on patient care.

中文翻译：

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技术驱动的放射治疗创新研究。

技术在放射治疗的不断发展中起着举足轻重的作用。在通往现代“高科技”放射肿瘤学的漫长道路上，充斥着各种学科相互作用的发现和技术创新。在过去的几十年里，一场戏剧性的技术革命极大地提高了准确、安全地提供复杂形状剂量分布的能力。这有助于许多临床改进，例如通过立体定向放疗成功治疗肺癌和寡转移性疾病。技术驱动的研究是一个活跃而充满活力的领域，在图像引导、自适应放射治疗、人工智能集成、重粒子治疗和“闪光”等多个领域具有广阔的潜力 超高剂量率放疗。个性化肿瘤学的发展将深刻影响技术驱动的研究，旨在将预测模型和组学分析整合到快速有效的解决方案中，为每位患者提供最佳治疗。个性化放射肿瘤学将需要中低收入国家负担得起的技术解决方案，因为预计这些国家的癌症发病率和死亡率增幅最大。此外，还需要用于调试自动化、质量保证、安全测试、图像分割和计划优化的技术解决方案。尽管很大一部分癌症患者接受放射治疗，但这肯定没有反映在全球放射治疗研究预算中。与制药公司驱动的研究不同，放射治疗研究的资源仅限于设备供应商，而设备供应商反过来可以与学术研究中心开展数量有限的合作。因此，通过公共基金、国家政府和欧盟加强对技术驱动的放射治疗研究的投资将产生至关重要的社会影响。它将允许放射治疗进一步加强其作为一种高效且具有成本效益的癌症治疗方式的作用，并且它可以促进快速和平等的大规模技术转移到临床，对患者护理产生直接影响。通过公共基金、国家政府和欧盟加强对技术驱动的放射治疗研究的投资将产生重要的社会影响。它将允许放射治疗进一步加强其作为一种高效且具有成本效益的癌症治疗方式的作用，并且它可以促进快速和平等的大规模技术转移到临床，对患者护理产生直接影响。通过公共基金、国家政府和欧盟加强对技术驱动的放射治疗研究的投资将产生重要的社会影响。它将允许放射治疗进一步加强其作为一种高效且具有成本效益的癌症治疗方式的作用，并且它可以促进快速和平等的大规模技术转移到临床，对患者护理产生直接影响。