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This book provides clear guidance on how to manage a wide range of side effects frequently encountered when treating patients with radiation therapy. For each potential side effect, incidence, mechanism, symptoms, and grading are carefully described. All aspects of management are addressed, drawing on the latest available evidence and highlighting key details of importance in clinical routine. The introduction of new radiation therapy techniques such as 3D conformal radiation therapy, intensity-modulated radiation therapy, and image-guided radiation therapy has reduced normal tissue doses and, accordingly, treatment complications. Nevertheless, a significant percentage of patients still experience acute side effects, in part because the threshold doses for these toxicities are typically lower than those for late effects. Acute toxicities may lead to interruption of treatment and be associated with an increase in late damage. A swift and effective response is therefore essential. This book will enable the reader to provide effective care for each side effect, thereby improving patient compliance with treatment and treatment outcomes.

Water is recognized as being an important factor in numerous pheno mena connected with the quality of food. For instance, it plays a part in the textural properties of several commodities. Moreover, water is an essential parameter determining the behaviour of food products in the course of many processing operations : on water, will depend the amount of energy necessary for freezing or dehydrating the product; water will strongly influence the evolution of physical, chemical and biochemical phenomena taking place in the product during processing operations such as heating, drying, etc. Water will also influence the same reactions, as well as the activity of microorganisms, during the storage of food products under various conditions. As a result, all aspects of quality - sensory, nutritional and hygienic properties of the food - will be affected. In all these circumstances, the water content of a product is obviously an important factor, but equally important may be the physical properties of this water, such as its thermodynamic activity and its mobility. Actual ly, the concept of water activity (a ) is now widely used by the food industry and in the legislation of sever')¥l countries. The idea of a small, international meeting devoted to a synthetic review and discussion of knowledge on these various matters, was first developed by Dr. R. B.