Cancer of the esophagus is a fatal cancer. There are two histological types of esophageal cancer, namely; adeno carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). The incidence of SCC esophagus is common in the Asian continent and in the North Eastern part of India. Radiotherapy is the standard modality of treatment in unresectable SCC of the esophagus and chemotherapy is administered as an adjuvant or concurrent to radiotherapy. Concurrent chemo-radiotherapy (CRT) is ideal for patients with resectable SCC of the esophagus who refuse surgical resection, and also in locally advanced unresectable cases . The treatment outcomes of SCC esophagus show a high degree of residual diseases after radiotherapy alone or after CRT. However, a sub-group of esophageal SCC responds very well to a standard 50-60Gray of external beam radiotherapy with chemotherapy, and many a times without chemotherapy as well. It is seen that those malignancies that responded well to the radiotherapy initially, when they recurred after a period of two to three years, it was radio-resistant later !! Why does this happen ??
Various molecular mechanisms and radiosensitizing stategies have been proposed.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/term=esophageal+cancer+radioresistance
Thanks Eduardo for the response. By your proposed theory, it is well understood that, a sub-group of malignant cells were inherently more capable of repairing radiation induced DNA damage. Thus, would lead to residual disease after treatment after say 6 months or even earlier. However, if there are no residues after treatment, and recurrence would happen after say two-three years, how that can be explained was my question regarding the tumor behavior. Anyways, thank you once again for the answer
Eduardo G Moros
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Geoscience
- Asia
- India