Therapeutic targets in radiotherapy

Background: Enormous progress has been made in the past 5 years in our understanding of the gene products governing the response of mammalian cells to ionizing radiation, Many of these are potential targets for enhancing the effectiveness of radiotherapy. However, a major barrier to such efforts is the requirement for a preferential effect on tumor vs. normal cells. Such a requirement can only come about by exploiting a known difference between tumor and normal cells, Methods: This review highlights three differences between tumor and normal cells that are being exploited with fractionated radiotherapy. Results: The three strategies to enhance preferentially tumor response to radiotherapy are inhibition of ras activity using farnesyltransferase inhibitors (FTIs), inhibition of epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFRs), and the use of drugs that preferentially kill hypoxic cells, Each of these strategies exploits a known difference between at least some tumors and their surrounding normal tissues, and each has shown encouraging results when combined with fractionated radiation in preclinical studies. Conclusions: For each of the three strategies to enhance preferentially the sensitivity of cancers, the preclinical and early clinical data are promising for their successful application in radiotherapy, (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Inc.