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Article History

Received: 8 January 2026

Accepted: 14 April 2026

First Online: 29 April 2026

Declarations

:

: Consent of the study protocol was obtained from the expert committee of the German Society for Radiation Oncology (DEGRO). The study was approved by the leading Ethics Committee at the TUD Dresden University of Technology (EK257062017) and local ethical approval is necessary of every partner center before the initiation of their center. Written informed consent is obtained from every participant prior to study inclusion by qualified investigators at the participating centres. Participants will be informed about the purpose, procedures, potential risks and benefits of the study in accordance with ethical and regulatory requirements. Standardised consent forms, approved by the ethics committees, are used. Model informed consent forms are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. All patient data are pseudonymised prior to analysis. Access to identifiable data is restricted to authorised study personnel. The study is being monitored regularly. Important protocol modifications (e.g. changes to eligibility criteria, outcomes or analyses) will be communicated to the responsible ethics committees, participating study centres, and trial registries in accordance with regulatory requirements. The trial registry entry will be updated accordingly. Where applicable, trial participants will be informed.

: Not applicable.

: Michael Baumann, CEO and Scientific Chair of the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ, Heidelberg) is responsible for collaborations with a large number of companies and institutions worldwide. In this capacity, he has signed contracts for research funding and/or collaborations, including commercial transfers, with industry and academia on behalf of his institute(s) and staff. He is a member of several supervisory boards, advisory boards and boards of trustees. Michael Baumann confirms that he has no conflict of interest with respect to this paper. In the past 5 years, Mechthild Krause, Annett Linge and Esther G.C. Troost were involved in a publicly funded (German Federal Ministry of Education and Research) project with the companies Medipan (2019-2022), Attomol GmbH (2019-2022), GA Generic Assays GmbH (2019-2022), Gesellschaft für medizinische und wissenschaftliche genetische Analysen (2019-2022), Lipotype GmbH (2019-2022) and PolyAn GmbH (2019-2022). Mechthild Krause, Annett Linge and Esther G.C. Troost confirm that, to the best of their knowledge, none of the above-mentioned funding sources were involved in the preparation of this paper. Amir Abdollahi received third-party funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the German Research Foundation (DFG). In addition, he received grants or other support from, or served on scientific advisory boards (SAB) at Merck KGaA, Merck Serono, Bayer, Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS), FibroGen Inc., Roche, and BioMedX (within the past 5 years and ongoing). Amir Abdollahi declares that none of the above-mentioned funding sources were involved in the preparation of this manuscript.