Immunotherapy Combined with Large Fractions of Radiotherapy: Stereotactic Radiosurgery for Brain Metastases-Implications for Intraoperative Radiotherapy after Resection.

ABSTRACT: Brain metastases (BM) affect approximately a third of all cancer patients with systemic disease. Treatment options include surgery, whole-brain radiotherapy, or stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) while chemotherapy has only limited activity. In cases where patients undergo resection before irradiation, intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT) to the tumor bed may be an alternative modality, which would eliminate the repopulation of residual tumor cells between surgery and postoperative radiotherapy. Accumulating evidence has shown that high single doses of ionizing radiation can be highly efficient in eliciting a broad spectrum of local, regional, and systemic tumor-directed immune reactions. Furthermore, immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) has proven effective in treating antigenic BM and, thus, comb

SUBMITTER: Herskind C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5522878 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature