ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Radiation Oncology
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1657392
Phenomenological Insights into the FLASH Radiotherapy-Induced Abscopal Effect
Provisionally accepted
- 1Istituto Oncologico del Mediterraneo spa Unita Operativa di Oncologia, Viagrande, Italy
- 2Rem Radioterapia srl, Viagrande, Italy
- 3Universita degli Studi di Enna 'Kore', Enna, Italy
- 4Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Frascati, Italy
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Background: The abscopal suggests that radiotherapy impact extends beyond the direct tumor local regression, owing to the activation of the immune response. Its effectiveness may vary depending on whether high or low radiation doses are used. In Flash therapy, the high-dose, high-dose-rate treatment induces systemic effects that may trigger an abscopal response also. Methods: We discuss a phenomenological, computational model, based on available in vivo Flash radiotherapy data, to quantitatively analyze the possible synergistic effects with the immune system to produce a systemic effect. Results: The method enables a quantitative assessment of the interaction between FLASH radiotherapy and the activated immune response, based on observations of metastatic shrinkage due to the FLASH treatment of the primary tumor.
Keywords: mathematical modeling, Gompertz law, Radiotherapy, abscopal effect, Flash radio-therapy Immunotherapy
Received: 02 Jul 2025; Accepted: 25 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Castorina, Ferini and Romano. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Paolo Castorina, Istituto Oncologico del Mediterraneo spa Unita Operativa di Oncologia, Viagrande, Italy
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