Rationale for Combining Radiotherapy and Immune Checkpoint Inhibition for Patients With Hypoxic Tumors.

ABSTRACT: In order to compensate for the increased oxygen consumption in growing tumors, tumors need angiogenesis and vasculogenesis to increase the supply. Insufficiency in this process or in the microcirculation leads to hypoxic tumor areas with a significantly reduced pO2, which in turn leads to alterations in the biology of cancer cells as well as in the tumor microenvironment. Cancer cells develop more aggressive phenotypes, stem cell features and are more prone to metastasis formation and migration. In addition, intratumoral hypoxia confers therapy resistance, specifically radioresistance. Reactive oxygen species are crucial in fixing DNA breaks after ionizing radiation. Thus, hypoxic tumor cells show a two- to threefold increase in radioresistance. The microenvironment is enriched with chemok

SUBMITTER: Eckert F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6423917 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature