Predicting tumour radiosensitivity to deliver precision radiotherapy

Abstract

Owing to advances in radiotherapy, the physical properties of radiation can be optimized to enable individualized treatment; however, optimization is rarely based on biological properties and, therefore, treatments are generally planned with the assumption that all tumours respond similarly to radiation. Radiation affects multiple cellular pathways, including DNA damage, hypoxia, proliferation, stem cell phenotype and immune response. In this Review, we summarize the effect of these pathways on tumour responses to radiotherapy and the current state of research on genomic classifiers designed to exploit these variations to inform treatment decisions. We also discuss whether advances in genomics have generated evidence that could be practice changing and whether advances in genomics are now ready to be used

Review of optical reporters of radiation effects in vivo: tools to quantify improvements in radiation delivery technique

“…109 Perhaps no other area of radiotherapy research is as intensely studied today as the role of immune infiltration and immune reactions, either as mechanisms to synergize response or to understand how to amplify tumor damage. 110 The assessment of ROS is highly relevant to the immune response 111 because it is thought to be a driving force in initiating immune infiltration as well as likely altering local responses. Thus the ability to use in vivo optical reporters has substantial value in improving radiobiological impacts of immune response and immunotherapy.…”

Designing Bimetallic Metal‐Organic Framework‐Based Heterojunction Radiosensitizer for Enhanced Radiodynamic Therapy and Immunotherapy

“…[ 3 ] Radiosensitizers can either directly interact with biomacromolecules through electrophilic reactions to cause tumor cell damage, or increase the effect of tumor radiotherapy by inhibiting the DNA repair process. [ 4 ] Nanomaterial‐mediated radiosensitizers have been widely explored for enhanced radiotherapeutic efficiency as their high atomic number (high‐ Z ) originated radiosensitive activities, catalytic ability in manipulating redox balance, and potential drug‐delivering capability. [ 5 ] Gold, as a representative high‐ Z elemental, has witnessed great progress in radiotherapy.…”

A biocompatible nano-barium sulfonate system for quad-modal imaging-guided photothermal radiotherapy of tumors

“…1,2 However, even with the emergence of various anti-tumor treatments, single imaging techniques with monotherapy rarely achieve ideal outcomes due to the incomplete acquisition of cancer characteristics or suboptimal cancer ablation. [3][4][5][6][7] As a conventional cancer treatment strategy, [8][9][10] radiotherapy targets cells using ionizing radiation, which is extensively used to treat about 70% of patients in clinical cancer therapy. 11 Nevertheless, considering the hazard of ionizing radiation to healthy organs, the dose of ionizing radiation is limited to an acceptable range, which results in insufficient antitumor efficacy especially for hypoxic cells, [12][13][14] due to the lack of sufficient oxygen which can prevent DNA repair in irradiated cancer cells through stabilizing radiation-induced DNA damage.…”