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Cancer treatment responses and late normal tissue injury are conventionally assessed months or years after the completion of therapy by standard clinical endpoints, such as local progression free survival or late fibrosis.This conventional paradigm presents two major weaknesses.First, at the time by which tumor progression is identified, it is often too late to change the outcome of patients.Second, a large population of patients and extended followup times are required to determine the efficacy of the tested treatment.In addition, late determination of normal tissue toxicity limits or eliminates the time window available for therapeutic intervention to prevent or reduce normal tissue injury.Therefore, it is urgent for clinical scientists to change this conventional paradigm and to assess the therapeutic response and toxicity early, i.e.prior to the end ofplarmed therapy.For early assessment of therapeutic responses, conventional clinical endpoints are no longer adequate.