Systemic Anti-Tumor Effects – The Abscopal Effect

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July 27, 2018 | Cancer, Cells, Immunotherapy


The abscopal effect refers to the ability of localized radiation treatment of a tumor to have systemic anti-tumor effects. In the past this has been rare and deemed almost a magical form of recovery. However, with continued developments in cancer research and immunotherapy strategies, this miraculous form of recovery is becoming more of a realistic possibility for cancer patients. How does this work exactly? Formerly, radiation therapy has been used as a localized treatment focused on controlling and killing cancer tumor cells by direct damage while minimizing healthy tissue damage. But as doctors are discovering, radiation therapy can elicit systemic tumor effects by acting as an immunomodulator to the tumor microenvironment.

Radiation can act as an immunomodulator in several ways. By inducing cell death, radiation causes a release of immunologic factors, one of these factors is improved antigen presentation to T cells. Radiation also causes local inflammation, which alerts the immune system. The immune system will send cells, including T cells, to the site of inflammation where they are presented with these antigens. The antigens will then trigger the production of new antibodies that recognize the cancer cells as foreign. This is very important because one of the reasons cancer is so hard to kill is that your body doesn’t recognize it as foreign and therefore won’t attack. Now, after radiation, these new antibodies are traveling through the body and when they come across other cancerous tumors they know to attack.



https://cancercelltreatment.com/2018/07 ... al-effect/