Impact of Radiation on Cancer Metastasis

Radiation increases metastasis.

Check out the captions below for the supporting evidence of this post. How?

Well, first, radiation increases circulating tumor

cells, cells released from a

primary tumor traveling to distant sites to promote potentially new tumors.

It also damages healthy cells, particularly what's called the tumor

bed effect or bystander effect, changing epigenetics,

the expression of these

healthy cells, damaging the matrix, and also modifying the immune system.

It also increases invasion. It increases

angiogenesis, the blood vessel supply growth

that give it the track to leave.

It also modifies the immune system via M2 macrophage

polarization within the tumor microenvironment,

stimulating pro-inflammation,

allowing it to evade the immune system.

It activates distant dormant micrometastatic sites via what's

known as the concomitant theory. It also forces mutations,

phenotypic shift. It also promotes cancer stem

cell transformation, and it leads to oncogenic metabolic shift,

such as the Warburg effect, where cancer cells are using glucose very

inefficiently. At the Williams Cancer Institute, we use

non-radiation ablative techniques such as pulse electric field therapy to

activate the immune system, train it locally, and let it spread

systemically to destroy-