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Sep 30
Education

EDU 45 - Radiation as an Immune Catalyst: Techniques, Biology and Biomaterials for Enhancing Tumor Control

02:30pm - 03:45pm PT
Immunotherapy
Radiation and Cancer Biology

MODERATOR(S)

Zachary Morris, MD, PhD - University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health

session DESCRIPTION

Increasing evidence has demonstrated the importance of immunomodulation on tumor control. Radiotherapy, specifically, can produce a multitude of local and systemic immunomodulatory effects, including reprogramming the tumor microenvironment and exposing tumor antigens via in situ vaccination. The benefit of in situ vaccination (versus exogenous vaccination strategies) is that it can produce a more diverse, yet specific, tumor-specific T cell response, thereby resulting in distant, regional, and local tumor effects. Many challenges exist to its widespread success in the clinic [1-6], including spatiotemporal factors; tumor type-specific responses; sequence between radiotherapy, systemic therapy, and/or surgery; radiation dose, type, and/or fractionation; balance between immunostimulatory and immunosuppressive effects; and patient-specific factors. Immunotherapy is not without toxicity, and inert radiotherapy materials such as "smart radiotherapy biomaterials" (SRBs) may function as promising radiosensitizers, immunoadjuvants, and/or drug delivery vehicles to generate an in situ vaccine[7, 8]. Biomarkers and radiomics are therefore being explored to predict a persons individual response to radiation-induced in situ vaccination, thereby personalizing this therapy and increasing the likelihood of a favorable response[9-11]. This session will therefore explore techniques to enhance radiostimulatory effects on tumor control, as well as present current modalities to assess the response in a patient.

learning objectives

  1. Describe the immunomodulatory effects of radiation on the tumor microenvironment, local immune response, and distant sites, and mechanisms to promote an immunostimulatory effect in a patient.
  2. Define how smart radiotherapy biomaterials (SRBs) can be used for image guidance, tumor microenvironment targeting, and radiation-induced in situ vaccination.
  3. Identify biomarker and radiomic signals that can be employed to assess and predict the response to radiation-induced in situ vaccination.

Credits

AMA PRA Category 1 Credits: 1.25

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