[Radiation protection in radiation oncology. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow].

Publications about radiation protection issues are not very frequent in the 100-year-old history of Strahlentherapie und Onkologie. While at the beginning of the last century the problems of radiation protection were determined by the technical development of radiation therapy, the importance of radiation protection measures and knowledge about radiation protection by the persons involved has clearly increased. A new challenge is treating patients according to radiation safety issues to avoid the risk of stochastic late effects, such as radiation-induced secondary tumors.