The main mechanism due to which radiation therapy fails to destroy cancer tumors in the body has been found by researchers at The Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai. They team has also come up with a novel solution with which successful radiotherapy can be executed.
The research found that while the skin which habors tumours is destroyed by radiotheraphy, a new set of immune cells called Langerhans gets activated. These cells not only repair the damage in their own DNA composition, which is caused by radiotheraphy, but also becomes uniquely resistant to the whole radiation process. Along with this, another unique thing which these cells do is that, they trigger an immune response in skin tumors such as melanoma, which leads to resistance to further treatment due to which radiotherapy fails to deliver the expected results.
In order to overcome such a situation, the investigators conducted a study using mouse models of meloma. Special focus was paid on the skin area where Langerhans cells were located and then they mimicked the effect of immunotherapy drugs in order to boost the immune system to attack the tumors. On doing this, it was found that the ability of Langerhans cells to repair their own DNA had come down which in turn prevented the development of immune response that protects skin tumors.
This finding is regarded as a major break-through in the area of oncology and will go a long way in the successful execution of the radition therapy.
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