Highlighting the Potential for Chronic Stress to Minimize Therapeutic Responses to Radiotherapy through Increased Immunosuppression and Radiation Resistance.

ABSTRACT: Ionizing radiation has been used in the treatment of cancer for more than 100 years. While often very effective, there is still a great effort in place to improve the efficacy of radiation therapy for controlling the progression and recurrence of tumors. Recent research has revealed the close interaction between nerves and tumor progression, especially nerves of the autonomic nervous system that are activated by a variety of stressful stimuli including anxiety, pain, sleep loss or depression, each of which is likely to be increased in cancer patients. A growing literature now points to a negative effect of chronic stressful stimuli in tumor progression. In this review article, we present data on the potential for adrenergic stress to influence the efficacy of radiation and in particular, i

SUBMITTER: Chen M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7767049 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature