Guest Editors:
Venkata SK. Manem: University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières, Canada
Farzad Taghizadeh-Hesary: Iran University of Medical Sciences, Iran
BMC Cancer has published this Collection on advances in personalized radiotherapy. We welcomed studies that aimed to improve clinical outcomes following radiotherapy by the personalization of treatment as well as a further understanding of radiosensitivity and the development of biomarkers.
Venkata SK. Manem: University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières, Canada
Dr. Venkata Manem is a Principal Investigator at the Centre de Recherche du CHU de Québec - Université Laval and an Assistant Professor (under grant) in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at the Université du Québec à Trois Rivières. He is an FRQS Junior 1 scholar in Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Digital Health. Trained as an Applied Mathematician, he obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Waterloo and subsequently completed his postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School & Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston) and at the Princess Margaret Cancer Center (Toronto). He later worked as a Bioinformatics researcher at the Quebec Heart & Lung Institute Research Center (Quebec). Dr. Manem’s research expertise is to employ AI and statistical tools with the aim to develop data-driven diagnostic and predictive biomarkers by integrating multimodal datasets from various sources. He has extensive experience in translational research and has worked on several computational biology projects to develop a novel class of multimodal biomarkers for improving the clinical management of cancer.
Farzad Taghizadeh-Hesary: Iran University of Medical Sciences, IranFarzad Taghizadeh-Hesary, M.D., is an Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology at the Iran University of Medical Sciences (IUMS). His familiarity with the research methodologies has enabled him to conduct various research types, such as meta-analysis, systematic review, clinical trial, and prospective and retrospective studies. His areas of expertise are radiation oncology, radiation biology, medical oncology, and cancer biology. Now, he serves as an Editorial Board member for BMC Cancer, PLOS ONE, Medicine, BMC Research Notes, Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention, Human Gene, Journal of Medical Case Reports, and the Guest Editor of Human Gene.
BMC Cancer has published this Collection on advances in personalized radiotherapy. We welcomed studies that aimed to improve clinical outcomes following radiotherapy by the personalization of treatment as well as a further understanding of radiosensitivity and the development of biomarkers.
Radiotherapy (RT) is a mainstay of cancer treatment. The tumor response to the RT is heterogeneous, from a complete response to even disease progression during radiation. This issue urges understanding factors mediating different RT responses in different individuals. This approach has evolved into a discipline in Oncology called Personalized Radiotherapy. This discipline aims to modulate the RT intensity, schedule, and concomitant treatments to improve the therapeutic index. In recent years, technological advances and the increased use of combined-modality RT, such as chemoradiotherapy and immunoradiotherapy, have improved clinical outcomes. Improvements in imaging technologies have led to the field of radiomics and the use of its potential to improve theranostic objectives. Alongside radiomics, genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics are also all accelerating the discovery of predictive biomarkers of radiosensitivity and treatment efficacy as well as adverse events and toxicity. The increased integration of biomarkers from various high-dimensional data modalities and combination of RT with other systemic treatments such as immunotherapy and targeted therapeutics, as well as a better understanding of tumor heterogeneity and the effect of the tumor microenvironment, offers the true promise of personalized radiotherapy.
In recognition of the multidisciplinary research needs to improve personalized radiotherapy further, BMC Cancer has published a collection on this subject. Topics of interest included, but were not limited to, the following:
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The most appropriate time of primary tumor radiotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer(NSCLC) with EGFR-TKIs remains unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the time factor of primary tu...
The estimated dose of radiation to immune cells (EDRIC) has been shown to correlate with the overall survival (OS) of patients who receive definitive thoracic radiotherapy. However, the planning target volume ...
Radiotherapy in patients with head and neck cancer fairly leads to xerostomia, profoundly affecting their quality of life. With limited effective preventive and therapeutic methods, attention has turned to exp...
Radiotherapy is a mainstay of cancer treatment. The clinical response to radiotherapy is heterogeneous, from a complete response to early progression. Recent studies have explored the importance of patient cha...
For patients with early-stage cervical cancer without high-risk factors, there is no consensus regarding the optimal postoperative treatment regimen and whether postoperative concurrent radiochemotherapy (CCRT...
While surgical resection remains the primary treatment approach for symptomatic or growing meningiomas, radiotherapy represents an auspicious alternative in patients with meningiomas not safely amenable to sur...
Soft tissue sarcomas (STS), have significant inter- and intra-tumoral heterogeneity, with poor response to standard neoadjuvant radiotherapy (RT). Achieving a favorable pathologic response (FPR ≥ 95%) from RT ...
Prophylactic cranial irradiation (PCI) is part of standard care in limited-stage small cell lung cancer (SCLC) at present. As evidence from retrospective studies increases, the benefits of PCI for limited-stag...
Radiotherapy (RT) is an effective and available local treatment for patients with refractory or relapsed (R/R) aggressive B-cell lymphomas. However, the value of hypofractionated RT in this setting has not bee...
Although substantial efforts have been made to build molecular biomarkers to predict radiation sensitivity, the ability to accurately stratify the patients is still limited. In this study, we aim to leverage l...
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) hold promise for improving our understanding of radiotherapy response in glioblastoma due to their role in intercellular communication within the tumour microenvironment (TME). How...
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Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.
The Guest Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Guest Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.