[Stereotactic body radiation therapy: radiobiological characteristics, physical-technical prerequisites, clinical applications].

Radiotherapy of small targets with very high single doses administered in 1 to approximately 12 fractions-carried out under image guidance and with the intention of "tumour ablation"-is called stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) for extracranial tumours or metastases. Radiobiologically, besides damaging the DNA of the tumour cells, the tumour vessels are also occluded and immunological effects are triggered. The safe performance of SBRT requires a very high physical-technical effort in order to ensure sufficient protection of healthy organs. Clinically, SBRT offers a wide range of applications in curative therapy (e.g. non-small-cell lung cancer stage I). Furthermore, it is a conservative, effective and well-tolerated option for the treatment of individual metastases and an optimal combination partner in the therapy of oligometastatic tumours.