• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Tuesday, August 5, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Health

Review outlines approaches to deliver radiation to tumors while sparing healthy tissue

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
May 3, 2021
in Health
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

IMAGE

Credit: UNC Health

CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina–A comprehensive review by University of North Carolina researchers and colleagues highlights the optimal ways that focused, high-dose radiation can be delivered to various types of tumors while sparing normal tissue and mitigating long-term side effects. The review was reported as a special issue in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics on May 1, 2021.

This analysis was based on an exhaustive review of data and the literature published largely in the past decade. It updates an earlier review that primarily focused on the effects of conventional radiation therapy on normal tissue. This new review also includes important analyses of how well high-dose radiation can destroy small tumors, such as small brain lesions, lung lesions, and cancers that metastasize to other parts of the body.

“We undertook this review because we have an ever-increasing knowledge about the dose and volume of tissue to which we can direct radiation to both eradicate tumors while also safeguarding the surrounding normal tissue,” said Lawrence B. Marks, MD, chair of the UNC Department of Radiation Oncology and Dr. Sidney K. Simon Distinguished Professor of Oncology Research at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. “Today, we are better able to tailor radiotherapy to optimize benefit and minimize risk.”

Conventional radiotherapy, developed nearly a century ago, often broadly hits the tumor and some healthy tissue surrounding the tumor, and is administered in low daily doses, usually over many weeks. For some patients, their cancer can be treated with more advanced techniques, called stereotactic body radiation therapy, or radiosurgery, that target smaller areas of tissue that are primarily cancerous, treating them at a high dose per day and usually administered for one to five days. These radiosurgery treatments are the focus of this recently published report.

Marks said UNC is a leader in radiosurgery treatments. “We are lucky to have specialized equipment and expertise to deliver these types of treatments.” He added that UNC’s multidisciplinary approach to cancer care brings together clinical collaborators to work in partnership with radiosurgery program to care for a wide range of cancers, including brain, thoracic, gastrointestinal and genitourinary cancers.

“New computational methods and machines allow us to deliver radiotherapy much more accurately today, allowing us to limit the area where the radiation is targeted, thereby giving us the ability to increase the dose per day,” Marks said. “However, at this point in time we can only use this approach for smallish-sized tumors, but newer techniques may allow us to extend this approach to larger tumors as well.”

Because it takes years for data to accrue and mature, the next review will be done when there are discernable shifts or changes in treatment practice patterns, according to the authors. However, there is a large review due out next year, in which Marks is participating, that is focusing on use of radiotherapy in pediatric cancers. Radiotherapy is often used sparingly in children due to later-in-life side effects, therefore making it important to know when best to use these treatments.

“Radiation therapy is now safer than ever. Our analysis will help support the growing use of the latest forms of radiotherapy, which are proving to be a very effective in treating many primary and metastatic lesions,” Marks concluded.

###

In addition to Marks, the other authors from UNC include Shiva Das, PhD, Nathan Sheets, MD, Panayiotis Mavroidis, PhD, DABR, and Trevor Royce, MD, MPH. Other members of Marks’ steering committee include Jimm Grimm, PhD, Geisinger Cancer Institute, Danville, PA, and Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia; Andrew Jackson, PhD, and Ellen Yorke, PhD, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York; Brian D. Kavanagh, MD, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, CO; and Jinyu Xue, PhD, NYU Langone Medical Center, New York.

Media Contact
Bill Schaller
[email protected]

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrobp.2020.10.039

Tags: cancerMedicine/Health
Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

Deep Sequencing Reveals Plasmodium vivax Lineages

Deep Sequencing Reveals Plasmodium vivax Lineages

August 5, 2025
blank

Enamel Rod-End Patterns: New Forensic ID Tool?

August 5, 2025

New Validity and Norms for BSI-18 in Young Substance Users

August 5, 2025

Serum Bile Acids Linked to Precocious Puberty Diagnosis

August 5, 2025
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • blank

    Neuropsychiatric Risks Linked to COVID-19 Revealed

    72 shares
    Share 29 Tweet 18
  • Overlooked Dangers: Debunking Common Myths About Skin Cancer Risk in the U.S.

    61 shares
    Share 24 Tweet 15
  • Predicting Colorectal Cancer Using Lifestyle Factors

    46 shares
    Share 18 Tweet 12
  • Dr. Miriam Merad Honored with French Knighthood for Groundbreaking Contributions to Science and Medicine

    47 shares
    Share 19 Tweet 12

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

World Models Power End-to-End Accident Prediction

Deep Sequencing Reveals Plasmodium vivax Lineages

Enamel Rod-End Patterns: New Forensic ID Tool?

  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.