Textbook of Personalized Medicine - Second Edition [2015]

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Personalized Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy is the most common agent used in cancer therapy and up to 60 %
of cancer patients receive it. However, physicians are unable to distinguish differ-
ences in radiosensitivity across tumors when prescribing it. Accurate prediction of
human tumor response to radiation therapy and concomitant chemoradiation would
be an important tool to assist the physician in making recommendations for tumor
treatment. Most studies that defi ne the molecular biomarkers for prediction of radia-
tion response are based on the observation of gene expression using immunostain-
ing, Northern blot or Western blot analysis of a single or several genes. The results
vary among the different studies and some results are contradictory. However, these
studies agree that the change in expression of the tumor-related gene affects the
radiation response. A novel approach was developed to predict the radiation
response of human tumor using Atlas™ human cancer 1.2 cDNA arrays to analyze
the expression profi le of 1,187 tumor-related genes in radiation-resistant and
radiation- sensitive tissues (Hanna et al. 2001 ). Sixty tumor-related genes were
selected as predictors of radiation response of squamous cell carcinoma of the head
and neck. Using the expression intensity of these 60 tumor-related genes, in combi-
nation with cluster analysis, researchers have introduced a mathematical method
that successfully predicted the radiation identity of two tumor samples.
Radiation therapy treatment comes with serious side effects in 5 % of patients.
Some cases of toxicity are associated with abnormal transcriptional responses to

Table 10.4 (continued)

Vaccine Sponsor Description/indication Phase/status
OVAX
autologous
cancer cell
vaccine

AVAX

Technologies

Inc

Haptenization, i.e. chemical

modifi cation of antigens on the

cancer cell to stimulate the

patient’s immune system/relapsed

stage III-IV ovarian cancer

Phase II

Personalized
idiotype
vaccine

Bayer Innovation

GmbH

Vaccine antigen is produced in

tobacco plants based on

magnICON ® technology

Phase I

Stimuvax ® DC
vaccine

Oncothyreon Inc/

Merck KGaA

Elicits T cell mediated immune

response to cancer cells

expressing the target MUC-1/

metastatic NSCLC

Phase III

TroVax:
dendritic cell
vaccine

Oxford Biomedica Vaccinia virus Ankara is engineered

to deliver the 5T4 antigen to

destroy cancer cells/TRIST

(TroVax Renal Immunotherapy

Survival Trial) in advanced and

metastatic renal cell carcinoma

Phase III

© Jain PharmaBiotech

Personalized Radiation Therapy