At least 200 completed or recruiting trials evaluating the combination of radiotherapy and immunotherapy in several cancers. Clinical evidence showed that the combination of radiotherapy and immunotherapy enhanced the antitumor effect of both modalities. The PACIFIC trial showed that given durvalumab (anti-PD-L1) after standard chemoradiotherapy significantly prolonged overall survival in patients with stage III NSCLC. Another study showed that ipilimumab (anti-CTLA4) in combination with radiotherapy improved objective responses in chemorefractory metastatic NSCLC patients.
Irradiation can activate the immune response by releasing tumor neoantigens, activating antigen-presenting cells, and recruiting T lymphocytes in the tumor, which is called “in situ” vaccination in the tumor immune microenvironment, and can induce elicit out-of-target tumor responses by stimulating the immune system, which is called “abscopal effects”. However, radiotherapy can also induce immunosuppressive effects including activating the recruiting MDSC, accumulating Treg cells, and upregulating PD-L1 expressions on cancer cells. Challenging questions remain about the best strategy to potentiate the immunostimulatory effects of radiotherapy to leverage its synergy with immunotherapy.
The goal of this Research Topic is to gather studies to update and discuss the new discoveries of radiotherapy combined with immune checkpoint inhibitors in cancer patients, and their synergistic effects on the tumor cells, immune cells, and stromal cells in the tumor microenvironment.
We welcome Original Research, Reviews, and Mini-Reviews articles that cover, but are not limited to, the following subtopics, and studies on liver cancer, renal carcinoma, and pancreatic cancer are warmly encouraged:
1. How fractionation, regimens, timing, and dosage of radiotherapy could affect the anticancer immune response.
2. Multifaceted exploration of combined therapy (e.g. immunotherapy) to overcome the radiotherapy-induced immunosuppressive effect.
3. The relationship between tumor microenvironment changing and radiotherapy resistance.
4. Novel findings on the mechanisms underlying radiation abscopal effect.
5. The effect of chemoradiotherapy or radioimmunotherapy on cancer immune microenvironments.
Please note: manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics or computational analysis of public genomic or transcriptomic databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) are out of scope for this section and will not be accepted as part of this Research Topic.
At least 200 completed or recruiting trials evaluating the combination of radiotherapy and immunotherapy in several cancers. Clinical evidence showed that the combination of radiotherapy and immunotherapy enhanced the antitumor effect of both modalities. The PACIFIC trial showed that given durvalumab (anti-PD-L1) after standard chemoradiotherapy significantly prolonged overall survival in patients with stage III NSCLC. Another study showed that ipilimumab (anti-CTLA4) in combination with radiotherapy improved objective responses in chemorefractory metastatic NSCLC patients.
Irradiation can activate the immune response by releasing tumor neoantigens, activating antigen-presenting cells, and recruiting T lymphocytes in the tumor, which is called “in situ” vaccination in the tumor immune microenvironment, and can induce elicit out-of-target tumor responses by stimulating the immune system, which is called “abscopal effects”. However, radiotherapy can also induce immunosuppressive effects including activating the recruiting MDSC, accumulating Treg cells, and upregulating PD-L1 expressions on cancer cells. Challenging questions remain about the best strategy to potentiate the immunostimulatory effects of radiotherapy to leverage its synergy with immunotherapy.
The goal of this Research Topic is to gather studies to update and discuss the new discoveries of radiotherapy combined with immune checkpoint inhibitors in cancer patients, and their synergistic effects on the tumor cells, immune cells, and stromal cells in the tumor microenvironment.
We welcome Original Research, Reviews, and Mini-Reviews articles that cover, but are not limited to, the following subtopics, and studies on liver cancer, renal carcinoma, and pancreatic cancer are warmly encouraged:
1. How fractionation, regimens, timing, and dosage of radiotherapy could affect the anticancer immune response.
2. Multifaceted exploration of combined therapy (e.g. immunotherapy) to overcome the radiotherapy-induced immunosuppressive effect.
3. The relationship between tumor microenvironment changing and radiotherapy resistance.
4. Novel findings on the mechanisms underlying radiation abscopal effect.
5. The effect of chemoradiotherapy or radioimmunotherapy on cancer immune microenvironments.
Please note: manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics or computational analysis of public genomic or transcriptomic databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) are out of scope for this section and will not be accepted as part of this Research Topic.