Abstract
Cancer patients vary considerably in their normal tissue response to radiation therapy. If this variation could be taken into account in the treatment planning phase, the therapeutic strategy could be individualized accordingly. Therefore, the ability to predict individual normal tissue radiosensitivity has been a long sought goal in radiobiology. Initially, interest was taken in predictive assays based on the cellular or subcellular response to irradiation in vitro. More recently, the attempts have focused on possible associations between various types of genetic sequence variation and the risk of adverse reactions to radiation therapy. Many of these studies have been hampered by certain methodological shortcomings and so far no clinically applicable predictive assay has been developed. Nevertheless, recent advances in high-throughput genotyping, bioinformatics, and the formation of collaborative research groups provide unprecedented opportunities to investigate the molecular and genetic factors underlying interindividual differences in normal tissue complication risk.
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Andreassen, C.N. (2013). The Biological Basis for Differences in Normal Tissue Response to Radiation Therapy and Strategies to Establish Predictive Assays for Individual Complication Risk. In: Sonis, S., Keefe, D. (eds) Pathobiology of Cancer Regimen-Related Toxicities. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5438-0_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5438-0_2
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