Radiation Response Biomarkers for Individualised Cancer Treatments

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Personalised medicine is the next step in healthcare, especially when applied to genetically diverse diseases such as cancers. Naturally, a host of methods need to evolve alongside this, in order to allow the practice and implementation of individual treatment regimens. One of the major tasks for the development of personalised treatment of cancer is the identification and validation of a comprehensive, robust, and reliable panel of biomarkers that guide the clinicians to provide the best treatment to patients. This is indeed important with regards to radiotherapy; not only do biomarkers allow for the assessment of treatability, tumour response, and the radiosensitivity of healthy tissue of the treated patient. Furthermore, biomarkers should allow for the evaluation of the risks of developing adverse late effects as a result of radiotherapy such as second cancers and non-cancer effects, for example cardiovascular injury and cataract formation. Knowledge of all of these factors would allow for the development of a tailored radiation therapy regime. This Special Issue of the Journal of Personalised Medicine covers the topic of Radiation Response Biomarkers in the context of individualised cancer treatments, and offers an insight into some of the further evolution of radiation response biomarkers, their usefulness in guiding clinicians, and their application in radiation therapy.

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English