Current Signal Transduction Therapy - Volume 5, Issue 3, 2010

Recent improvements in radiation oncology have been the most dramatic in human oncology and have yielded many fruitful outcomes in treatments for cancer patients. Improvements in physical technology have led us to a new world of treating targets from any direction using intensity-modulated radiation therapy, stereotactic body radiation therapy, and image-guided radiation therapy. Moreover, in the field of Read More

Recent advances in radiotherapy technology now enable us to deliver a booster dose of radiation to small target fractions in a malignant tumor. To fully exploit this technology in cancer therapy, it is necessary to clarify the location and dynamics of radioresistant cells in heterogeneous tumor microenvironments. Tumor cells in which the transcriptional activity of hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1) is extremely high are recognize Read More

Molecular target-based drugs have been expected as promising drugs in cancer treatment, and clinical trials using combined radiation therapy plus molecular target-based drugs have been performed to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of this approach. In order to obtain maximum radiotherapeutic gain, a detailed understanding of the mechanism underlying the interaction between radiation and these drugs is indis Read More

Solid tumors require angiogenesis for their growth and to form metastatsis. Many new cancer therapies are directed against tumor vessels. Radiation therapy is one of the most widely used treatments for a wide variety of tumors, and is thought to act by directly targeting clongenes, as well as was induce apoptosis of endothelial cells, and reduce angiogenesis. Vascular targeting agents are aimed specifically at the existi Read More

The abscopal effect is a potentially important phenomenon as a topic for basic research on tumor control and clinical oncology. Although it has been described in various malignancies, it is a rarely recognized clinical event. This phenomenon may arise mainly as a result of an activated immune system mediated through cytokines. Until recently, the abscopal effect referred to distant effects observed after local radiation Read More

Primary central nervous system (CNS) tumors account for only 2% of all adult cancers and the annual incidence of primary malignant brain cancer was 7.3 per 100,000 person-years. Malignant gliomas are the most common primary CNS tumors in adults accounting for 78% of all primary malignant CNS tumors. Glial neoplasms represent about 40% of all primary CNS tumors, over three quarters being malignant. The medi Read More

In order to achieve a high efficacy in cancer therapies which use radiation and/or hyperthermia, it is necessary to study and understand two important signal transduction pathways which can depress cell survival signals and simultaneously enhance cell death signals. Recent progress in molecular biology has provided information about these molecules and the associated mechanisms involved in their signaling and functi Read More

High linear energy transfer (LET) radiotherapy has an excellent dose distribution and relative biological effectiveness (RBE). As the RBE of particle beams for therapy is important in terms of determining the dose prescription, we have to evaluate an accurate and reliable assessment method. Recently, several particle therapy facilities will open; however, the dose estimation is still not uniform. We have to confirm the quality as Read More