Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
Radiation therapy rarely causes tumor regression at a distance from the irradiated site. This phenomenon is called the abscopal effect and was first reported in 1953 [1]. Two papers on the abscopal effect have been published in this issue.
First, Biswas et al. report the case of a 65-year-old man in whom hypofractionated palliative radiotherapy for local palliation of a primary esophageal tumor resulted in regression of all primary and distant unirradiated foci without immunotherapy [2].
Next, Kono et al. report the treatment of a 58-year-old woman with lung and brain metastases following transurethral resection and Bacille Calmette–Guerin therapy for bladder cancer. The patient received local stereotactic radiotherapy to the lung in combination with an immune checkpoint inhibitor (pembrolizumab), and the brain metastasis disappeared, resulting in long-term disease-free survival [3].
The abscopal effect is thought to be caused by immune activation of the tumor [4]. Future studies are needed to characterize the genomic features of such tumors to determine in which cases this extremely rare phenomenon occurs.
Data availability
This article contains all the data needed to create this article.
References
Mole RH (1953) Whole body irradiation; radiobiology or medicine? Br J Radiol 26:234–241
Biswas R, Jindel R, Halder A et al (2023) Abscopal effect of radiation in metastatic esophageal carcinoma: fourth reported case. Int Canc Conf J. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13691-023-00605-x
Kono S, Hashimoto Y, Shirai Y et al (2023) A long-term survival case of bladder cancer with distant metastases: abscopal effect of brain metastases after stereotactic radiotherapy with immune checkpoint blockade therapy to lung metastases. Int Canc Conf J. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13691-023-00606-w
Demaria S, Ng B, Devitt ML et al (2004) Ionizing radiation inhibition of distant untreated tumors (abscopal effect) is immune mediated. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 58:862–870
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
About this article
Cite this article
Matsumura, N. Who benefits from the abscopal effect?. Int Canc Conf J 12, 167 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13691-023-00616-8
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13691-023-00616-8