ASTRO Annual Refresher Course registrants have access to additional learning opportunities as discounted registration add-ons.
Registrants who add any of the optional courses below to their registration will be able to access them in the ASTRO Academy until the course(s) expires.
You can add any of the courses below when you register for the 2026 Annual Refresher Course.
For pricing, visit the registration information page.
Radiopharmaceuticals are an increasingly utilized therapeutic option for the treatment of malignancies. This activity focuses on clinical indications, difficult cases, medical physics considerations, development of standard operating procedures for clinical implementation, billing, and safe theranostic delivery practices. Specifically, Radium-223, Lutetium-177 dotatate and Lutetium-177 PSMA-617 are discussed.
The activity includes didactic presentations from physician experts from radiation oncology, nuclear medicine, medical oncology and medical physicists, with question and answer sessions to discuss practice implementation in various clinical settings (i.e., academic hospital vs. community practice, nuclear medicine vs. radiation oncology). The purpose of this activity is to increase physician, physicist and administration understanding on how to effectively and safely conduct a radiopharmaceutical program at their respective institutions. This workshop was originally presented and recorded at the 2025 ASTRO Annual Meeting.
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| Radiobiology Update and Educational Resources | Ana P. Kiess, MD, PhD |
| Bench to Clinical Trials: Considerations for Theranostics Translation | Henry VanBrocklin, PhD |
| Standard Operating Procedures for Radiopharmaceutical Therapies | Jacqueline Zoberi, PhD |
| Administrative and Billing Processes for a RPT Program | Tina Visser, BS |
| Clinical Pearls from an Academic RO:NM Partnership | Hyun Kim, MD |
| Panel Q&A | Neil Taunk, MD, MS |
| Integrating Lu177-PSMA with Other Systemic Options for Advanced Prostate Cancer | William Oh, MD |
| Incorporating Theranostics into Prostate Cancer Clinical Practice | Bridget Koontz, MD, FASTRO |
| RLT for NET | Ravi Sridhar, MD, PhD |
| Integrating RPT with External Beam Treatment | Neil Taunk, MD, MS |
| Newer Isotopes and Future Indications for RPT | Michael Folkert, MD, PhD |
| Panel Q&A | Jacqueline Zoberi, PhD |
The Radiopharmaceutical Therapy Package includes three sessions originally presented and recorded at the 2025 ASTRO Annual Meeting. Course descriptions and learning objectives appear below.
Activity Description
Radiation dosimetry plays a critical role in the development and application of radiotherapeutic pharmaceuticals, ensuring both efficacy and safety in treatment. Accurate dosimetry enables precise quantification of the radiation dose delivered to target tissues, such as tumors, while minimizing exposure to surrounding healthy tissues. This precision is essential for maximizing therapeutic outcomes and reducing side effects. In the context of radiopharmaceuticals, dosimetry is particularly important because the distribution of radioactive agents can vary significantly depending on the patient's physiology and the agent's pharmacokinetics. By providing detailed dose assessments, dosimetry supports the optimization of treatment protocols, individualizing therapy to meet patient-specific needs. Additionally, it aids in regulatory compliance by ensuring that the safety thresholds for radiation exposure are met during clinical trials and routine use. Advances in dosimetry technologies, including imaging-based approaches and computational modeling, further enhance our ability to assess dose distributions, contributing to the continued evolution of precision medicine in radiation therapy.
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| Precision in Practice: The Critical Role of Radiation Dosimetry in Radiotherapeutic Pharmaceuticals | N. Calvin Han, MD |
| Precision Redefined: Advancing Dosimetry for Radiopharmaceuticals in Modern Nuclear Oncology | N. Calvin Han, MD |
| Radiation Dosimetry for Radiopharmaceuticals Overview | Andrei Iagaru, MD |
| Alpha Particles Radiation Dosimetry | George Sgouros, PhD |
| Computational Nuclear Oncology Towards Precision Radiopharmaceutical Therapies: Towards Theranostic Digital Twinning of Patients | Arman Rahmim, PhD |
| Q and A | Full Panel |
Objectives:
Activity Description
Theranostics, a treatment paradigm pairing diagnostic molecular imaging with radiopharmaceutical therapy (RPT), is resurgent, mainly driven by the FDA approvals of 177Lu-dotatate for neuroendocrine tumors and 177Lu-PSMA-617 for prostate cancer. Novel RPTs are in development for every major cancer type, and the market projects that RPT will expand significantly. For example, PSMA-targeting RPT therapy has generated over $1 billion in revenue within just two years of being on the market. Despite this rapid growth, there has not been a corresponding surge in interest among our society members in delivering or developing these therapies. This activity shares insights from providers who have successfully established and managed RPT programs in both academic and community settings, spanning the fields of Radiation Oncology and Nuclear Medicine. Panelists discuss their experiences, including successes, challenges and common pitfalls to avoid. The panel features both community and academic Radiation Oncologists from ASTRO, as well as Nuclear Medicine Physicians representing SNMMI.
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| Applying Lessons Learned from Medical Oncology to the Economics of Drug Delivery | John Phillips, MD, MPH |
| Developing a Standalone Clinic for RPTs - Lessons Learned from the Frontlines | Brandon Mancini, MD, MBA |
| 3 Things Industry Wishes You Knew About RPT Therapy | Thomas Boike, MD, FASTRO, MMM |
| Models of How Theranostics is Put into Practice and How SNMMI is Reaching out to the Community | Heather Jacene, MD |
| Everything Your Radiochemist Wished You Knew | Cathy Sue Cutler, PhD |
| Q and A | Full Panel |
Objectives:
Activity Description
Radiopharmaceutical Therapy (RPT) is an emerging modality with significant potential to impact future oncological management across many disease settings. While there is long-standing interest in combining focal radiotherapy (e.g., external beam radiation therapy) with immunotherapy to generate systemic anti-tumor immune responses - there has been limited success in the translation of this approach to the clinic. In contrast, the systemic nature of RPT and distinct cellular and molecular mechanism of this modality offers an attractive partner for immune-based approaches. Promising preclinical and translational work has demonstrated that RPT can be immunostimulatory and synergistically combine with both EBRT and/or immunotherapy. Given several recent regulatory approvals, a growing number of clinical indications and increasing utilization in the clinic, there is a need to characterize the immunogenicity of RPT in the clinic and to better understand how this modality can complement and/or be optimally combined with immune-based approaches to improve patient outcomes.
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| A Primer on Radiopharmaceutical Therapy | Freddy Escorcia, MD, PhD |
| Radiopharm in the Clinic: Current State and Opportunities for Combination Therapy | Mallika Marar, MD, MBA |
| Immune-based Mechanism of RPT and Potential Synergies with Immunotherapy (and/or EBRT) | Ravi Patel, MD, PhD |
| RPT and IO: Experience with Combination Trials and Moving Forward with Rational Designs | Thomas Hope, MD |
| Q and A | Full Panel |
Objectives:
This program is designed to address the needs of a community practice physician and includes disease site reviews, interactive case-based discussions, a dialogue with the ASTRO CEO and a business review of a radiation oncology practice.
The Practical Radiation Oncology (PRO) Program 2025 includes all PRO sessions originally presented and recorded at the 2025 ASTRO Annual Meeting. Learn more about the presentations and presenters for each PRO session listed below.
The Palliative/Re-Irradiation Package includes two sessions originally presented and recorded at the 2025 ASTRO Annual Meeting. Both course descriptions and learning objectives appear below.
Activity Description
With technological advances re-irradiation has rapidly become common and an important part of cancer management to new or recurrent tumors, yet is clinically challenging given risks of serious toxicity from cumulative doses. Institutional re-irradiation practices vary widely, though often involve a series of highly complex technical procedures coordinated by an interdisciplinary care team including across institutions. In the absence of evidence-based guidelines on re-irradiation best practices, an ESTRO-EORTC consensus paper has outlined technical aspects that must be accounted for in order to guide re-irradiation strategies. These include radiobiology and functional imaging to account for tissue recovery, and dosimetry aspects such as the using of deformable image registration to estimate cumulative doses in drastically different patient anatomy. Understanding the appropriateness and limitations of these processes is critical in their routine application in the clinic, and therefore re-irradiation necessitates interdisciplinary collaboration between oncologists, physicists, therapists and other team members. This activity facilitates more consistent, safe and high-quality care for patients receiving re-irradiation to manage their cancer.
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| Optimizing Team Roles and QA in Routine Clinical Practice | Kelly Paradis, PhD |
| Managing Uncertainty in Re-Irradiation Dose Summation Methods | Ane Appelt, PhD |
| Functional Image-Guided Re-Irradiation | Lawrence Marks, MD, FASTRO |
| Tissue Recovery and Radiobiology for Re-Irradiation | Gregory Gan, MD, PhD |
| Q and A | Michael Velec, PhD, RT |
Objectives
Activity Description
Symptoms from cancer are often best palliated by multimodal therapies performed by different physicians. This activity covers layered approaches to the palliative management of cancer pain from a variety of clinical conditions using radiation therapy, as well as minimally invasive interventional procedures. A radiation oncologist, neurointerventional radiologist and pain medicine specialist review challenging clinical vignettes that include metastatic lesions of bone, spine and nervous plexi, highlighting indications, toxicities and comparative effectiveness of available treatment techniques such as kyphoplasty, vertebroplasty, nerve blocks, steroid injections, intrathecal therapy, radiofrequency ablation and (re)irradiation. The discussion provides radiation oncologists with high yield points to help optimize their patients' symptom control.
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| Strengths and Limitations of Palliative Radiation Therapy in the Management of Cancer Pain | Malcolm Mattes, MD |
| Pain Medicine Approaches in the Management of Cancer Pain | Ann Cai Shah, MD |
| Neurointerventional Radiology Procedures in the Management of Cancer Pain | Nick Telischak, MD |
| Q and A | Full Panel |
Objectives
This educational series explores the evolving role of radiation therapy in manaing nonmalignant conditions, addressing current challenges, emerging evidence, and specialized applications in clinical practice. This series was originally presented and recorded as a live webinar series October 15-22, 2025.
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| Pearls and Pitfalls in Nonmalignant Radiation Therapy: Challenging Case Presentations |
Heinrich Seegenschmiedt, MD, PhD |
| Updates on Low Dose Radiotherapy for Osteoarthritis | Austin Dove, MD Manisha Palta, MD |
| Low Dose Radiotherapy (LDRT): Is There an Emerging Role in the Central Nervous System? | Evan Thomas, MD, PhD Parul Barry, MD |
Questions? Contact ASTRO eLearning.
