Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 18, 2025
05:39
Author Spotlight: Radiotherapy and Clonogenic Assays for Advancing Cancer Research and Personalized Medicine
Published on: April 5, 2024
901
Predicting tumour radiosensitivity to deliver precision radiotherapy.
James M Price1,2, Asmithaa Prabhakaran1, Catharine M L West3
1Department of Clinical Oncology, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, UK.
Nature Reviews. Clinical Oncology
|December 8, 2022
Summary
Radiotherapy optimization rarely uses biological properties, leading to assumptions of uniform tumor response. Genomic classifiers offer potential to personalize radiation therapy by analyzing tumor biology.
Area of Science:
- Oncology
- Radiation Oncology
- Genomics
Background:
- Current radiotherapy optimization focuses on physical radiation properties, not biological tumor characteristics.
- This leads to treatments assuming uniform tumor response, potentially limiting efficacy.
- Radiation impacts critical cellular pathways influencing tumor behavior and treatment response.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review the impact of cellular pathways on tumor response to radiotherapy.
- To assess the current state of genomic classifiers for personalizing radiation therapy decisions.
- To evaluate the practice-changing potential of genomics in guiding radiotherapy.
Main Methods:
- Literature review summarizing research on cellular pathways affected by radiation.
- Analysis of current genomic classifiers and their application in radiotherapy.
- Discussion of evidence supporting genomics-guided radiotherapy.
Main Results:
- Multiple cellular pathways (DNA damage, hypoxia, proliferation, stem cell phenotype, immune response) significantly affect tumor response to radiation.
- Genomic classifiers are emerging tools to identify variations in tumor response.
- Evidence for practice-changing applications of genomics in radiotherapy is under development.
Conclusions:
- Personalizing radiotherapy requires integrating biological insights, particularly from genomics.
- Genomic classifiers hold promise for tailoring radiation doses and combinations.
- Further research is needed to translate genomic advances into routine clinical practice for radiotherapy.
