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Clinical development of new drug-radiotherapy combinations.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

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Authors

Sharma, Ricky A 
Plummer, Ruth 
Stock, Julie K 
Greenhalgh, Tessa A 
Ataman, Ozlem 

Abstract

In countries with the best cancer outcomes, approximately 60% of patients receive radiotherapy as part of their treatment, which is one of the most cost-effective cancer treatments. Notably, around 40% of cancer cures include the use of radiotherapy, either as a single modality or combined with other treatments. Radiotherapy can provide enormous benefit to patients with cancer. In the past decade, significant technical advances, such as image-guided radiotherapy, intensity-modulated radiotherapy, stereotactic radiotherapy, and proton therapy enable higher doses of radiotherapy to be delivered to the tumour with significantly lower doses to normal surrounding tissues. However, apart from the combination of traditional cytotoxic chemotherapy with radiotherapy, little progress has been made in identifying and defining optimal targeted therapy and radiotherapy combinations to improve the efficacy of cancer treatment. The National Cancer Research Institute Clinical and Translational Radiotherapy Research Working Group (CTRad) formed a Joint Working Group with representatives from academia, industry, patient groups and regulatory bodies to address this lack of progress and to publish recommendations for future clinical research. Herein, we highlight the Working Group's consensus recommendations to increase the number of novel drugs being successfully registered in combination with radiotherapy to improve clinical outcomes for patients with cancer.

Description

Keywords

Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols, Cell Hypoxia, Clinical Trials as Topic, Combined Modality Therapy, Drug Approval, Humans, Neoplasms, Patient Education as Topic, Patient Participation, Quality Assurance, Health Care, Quality of Health Care, Radiation Dosage, Radiation Tolerance, Treatment Outcome

Journal Title

Nat Rev Clin Oncol

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1759-4774
1759-4782

Volume Title

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Sponsorship
Cancer Research Uk (None)
Cancer Research Uk (None)
National Institute for Health Research