medwireNews: Study findings suggest that using a genomic-adjusted radiation dose (GARD) may help overcome the heterogeneity of tumor response to radiotherapy and improve overall survival (OS) for patients with cancer.
GARD quantifies the biological impact of a specific radiation dose to a patient by encompassing gene expression information from the tumor radiosensitivity index and the physical radiation dose, explain Javier Torres-Roca (Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida, USA) and co-workers.
They pooled data from 1615 patients with non-small-cell lung cancer, breast cancer, and other tumor types who participated in one of 11 studies. GARD was calculated for the 75.4% of patients who received radiotherapy, while a sham GARD based on a standard-of-care regimen was calculated for patients not treated with radiation.
GARD significantly correlated with both time to first recurrence (hazard ratio [HR]=0.98) and OS (HR=0.97) in patients given radiotherapy. But there was no such relationship between sham GARD and the endpoints in those who did not receive radiation, nor between the actual or sham physical radiation doses and the survival outcomes.
Writing in The Lancet Oncology, the researchers suggest that “GARD provides a view of the effect of radiotherapy for each individual patient, providing radiation oncologists with crucial information to maximise the potential benefit of radiotherapy for each individual patient.”
They conclude: “We propose integration of genomics into radiation dosing decisions, using a GARD-based framework, as the new paradigm for personalising radiotherapy prescription dose.”
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