Epidemiological and experimental evidence for radiation-induced health effects in the progeny after exposure in utero.

Purpose: It has been known for many decades that radiation exposure of the developing embryo or fetus may cause two fundamentally different types of severe health effects: on the one hand, radiation may interfere with the normal intrauterine development, on the other hand, radiation may induce leukemia and cancer which become manifest in childhood. A large amount of epidemiological and experimental data has recently been presented which might be used to improve our understanding of underlying mechanisms and setting radiation protection standards. Yet, ecological studies in the populations exposed to increased levels of radiation in regions contaminated by radioactivity released from reactor accidents (Chernobyl, Fukushima) do not provide solid evidence which would contribute to this aim.

In vitro cellular and proteome assays identify Wnt pathway and CDKN2A-regulated senescence affected in mesenchymal stem cells from mice after a chronic LD gamma irradiation in utero.

Reliable data on the effects of chronic prenatal exposure to low dose (LD) of ionizing radiation in humans are missing. There are concerns about adverse long-term effects that may persist throughout postnatal life of the offspring. Due to their slow cell cycle kinetics and life-long residence time in the organism, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are more susceptible to low level genotoxic stress caused by extrinsic multiple LD events.

Tangential Field Radiotherapy for Breast Cancer-The Dose to the Heart and Heart Subvolumes: What Structures Must Be Contoured in Future Clinical Trials?

Background And Purpose: The aim of the present study was to evaluate if it is feasible for experienced radiation oncologists to visually sort out patients with a large dose to the heart. This would facilitate large retrospective data evaluations. And in case of an insufficient visual assessment, to define which structures should be contoured and which structures can be skipped as their dose can be derived from other easily contoured structures for future clinical trials.

Cardiovascular effects after low-dose exposure and radiotherapy: what research is needed?

The authors of this report met at the Head Quarter of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, Austria, on 2-4 July 2012, for intensive discussions of an abundance of original publications on new epidemiological studies on cardiovascular effects after low-dose exposure and radiotherapy and radiobiological experiments as well as several comprehensive reviews that were published since the previous meeting by experts sponsored by the IAEA in June 2006. The data necessitated a re-evaluation of the situation with special emphasis on the consequences current experimental and clinical data may have for clinical oncology/radiotherapy and radiobiological research. The authors jointly arrived at the conclusions and recommendations presented here.

Second malignancies following breast cancer treatment: a case-control study based on the Peridose methodology. Allegro project (task 5.4).

Aims And Background: To calculate peripheral radiation dose to the second primary site in patients who have developed a second malignancy after breast cancer radiotherapy (index cases) and to compare it with dose in the analogous anatomical site in radiotherapy-treated breast cancer patients who did not experience a second malignancy (controls). To evaluate the feasibility of Peridose-software peripheral dose calculation in retrospective case-control studies. MATERIAL AND STUDY DESIGN: A case-control study on 12,630 patients who underwent adjuvant breast radiotherapy was performed.

The risks to healthy tissues from the use of existing and emerging techniques for radiation therapy.

As radical radiotherapy treatments become more effective, more and more cancer patients are becoming cured of their disease and surviving for decades. Damage to exposed healthy tissues that becomes manifest in the medium-to-long-term is becoming a more significant factor in the choice of individual treatment plans and treatment modality. However, currently there are no reliable objective methods for predicting in an individual patient the occurrence of normal tissue complications, or second cancers caused by radiation.

Second malignancies in high‑dose areas of previous tumor radiotherapy.

Purpose: To characterize second tumors that developed in or near the high-dose areas of a previous radiotherapy, regarding their frequency, entities, latency, and dose dependence.

Patients And Methods: 9,995/15,449 tumor patients of the Radiation Oncology Department in Ulm, Germany, treated between 1981 and 2003, survived at least 1 year after radiotherapy. By long-term follow-up and review of treatment documentation, 100 of them were identified who developed an independent second cancer in or near the irradiated first tumor site.

Radiation-related heart disease: current knowledge and future prospects.

The heart has traditionally been considered a radio-resistant organ that would be unaffected by cardiac doses below about 30 Gray. During the last few years, however, evidence that radiation-related heart disease can occur following lower doses has emerged from several sources. These include studies of breast cancer patients, who received mean cardiac doses of 3–17 Gray when given radiotherapy following surgery, and studies of survivors of the atomic bombings of Japan who received doses of up to 4 Gray.

Microdistribution of targeted, fluorescently labeled anti-carcinoembryonic antigen antibody in metastatic colorectal cancer: implications for radioimmunotherapy.

Purpose: Most radioimmunotherapy studies on radiolabeled antibody distribution are based on autoradiographic and radioluminographic data, which provide a lack of detailed information due to low resolution. We used fluorescently labeled anti-carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) antibody (A5B7) to investigate quantitatively the kinetics and microdistribution of antibody in a clinically relevant orthotopic colorectal cancer model (LS174T) using high-resolution digital microscopy.

Experimental Design: Nude mice bearing LS174T liver orthotopic tumors received a single i.

Radiation-induced genomic instability in repair deficient mutants of Chinese hamster cells.

Purpose: To determine the role of single (SSB) and double strand break (DSB) repair in the induction and propagation of radiation-induced instability.

Materials And Methods: Two defined hamster cell lines with known DNA repair deficiencies in DSB repair (XR-C1) and base excision repair (EM-C11) and the parental wild-type line (CHO-9) were used. The rate of micronucleus formation, apoptosis and survival were measured at 0, 7 and 14 days after X-ray radiation.

Epidermal growth factor receptor expression in pretreatment biopsies from head and neck squamous cell carcinoma as a predictive factor for a benefit from accelerated radiation therapy in a randomized controlled trial.

Purpose: Accelerated repopulation is a main reason for locoregional failure after fractionated radiotherapy for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is a key controller of cellular proliferation in HNSCC, which stimulated the current study to look for a direct link between EGFR status and a possible clinical advantage of accelerated radiotherapy.

Patients And Methods: Immunohistochemical staining for EGFR was performed in 304 patients with available pretreatment tumor biopsy material among 918 patients randomized to receive continuous hyperfractionated accelerated radiotherapy versus conventionally fractionated radiotherapy.

MLL gene alterations in radiation-associated acute myeloid leukemia.

Aim: Although acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) arising after radiation exposure is considered to be secondary, little is known about the molecular mechanisms by which the radiation induces the leukemogenic phenotype. The aim of the study was to analyze whether the MLL translocations are as frequent in radiation-associated AML as in spontaneous AML cases.

Methods: Sixty one AML samples obtained at diagnosis were analyzed for the presence of MLL abnormalities using fluorescent in situ hybridization and/or reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction.

Target cells in radiation pneumopathy.

Radiation pneumopathy is the reaction of the organ lung to radiation effects in various target cells. It starts as an exudative inflammation, with the clinical picture of interstitial pneumonia 6-12 weeks after irradiation, and proceeds to a productive chronic inflammation lasting several months and terminating, as other chronic inflammations do, in scar formation, called lung fibrosis. Lung fibrosis is the common end point after lung damage from a wide range of damaging agents.

The relationship of thyroid cancer with radiation exposure from nuclear weapon testing in the Marshall Islands.

The US nuclear weapons testing program in the Pacific conducted between 1946 and 1958 resulted in radiation exposure in the Marshall Islands. The potentially widespread radiation exposure from radio-iodines of fallout has raised concerns about the risk of thyroid cancer in the Marshallese population. The most serious exposures and its health hazards resulted from the hydrogen-thermonuclear bomb test, the Castle BRAVO, on March 1, 1954.