ATM and TGFB1 polymorphism in prediction of late complications of chemoreadiotherapy in patients with locally advanced cervical cancer

Cervical cancer is due to high incidence the third most commonly diagnosed gynecological cancer in the Czech republic. More than 50% of these tumors are diagnosed in advanced stage (st. IIB and higher) and therapy is more difficult than in lower stage tumors. The standard treatement method for locally advanced cervical cancers is combined oncological therapy including external beam radiotherapy, brachytherapy and concomitant chemotherapy. This treatement provides good tumor control, but there is also a risk of late complications in irradiated area. Severe late complications affect 10-15% of patients. It is still not possible to predict late complications and therefore detection of valid predictive factors for high tissue radiosensitivity could help to identify patients with increased risk before therapy. Knowledge of such predictive factors would also help to individualize the treatement. New molecular biological methods brought new findings about cancerogenesis, cell cycle regulation and cellular reaction to the radiation damage. It was hypothized, that mutation of genes involved in DNA damage reparation or cell proliferation are one of causes of high tissue radiosensitivity. The aim of our study was to evaluate relations between ATM and TGFß1 polymorphisms and late tissue toxicity in patients treated for..

Analysis of D1853N ATM Polymorphism in Radiosensitive Patients with Cervical Carcinoma

Clinical oncologists have been focusing their efforts on attempting to define risk groups of patients with unusual biological reactions to the recommended therapy regimens using molecular biology techniques. The aims of our study were: (i) to find a design and validate a method for fast and reliable analysis of the D1853N (5557G>A) genetic polymorphism in the ATM (ataxia-telangiectasia mutated) gene; (ii) to use side-directed mutagenesis to generate ATM 5557A-positive DNA (reference ATM5557A DNA); and (iii) to analyze a group of patients suffering from cervical carcinoma with adverse responses to radiotherapy. The 5557A variant was found in three of twenty women (15%). Our data show that the prevalence of the 5557A allelic variant in cervical cancer subjects with adverse responses after irradiation probably does not differ from the prevalence common in Caucasians. A larger population study should confirm these preliminary results

Cardiotoxicity of radiation therapy in esophageal cancer

With a development of radiotherapeutic techniques, availability of radiotherapy data on cardiotoxicity, and slowly improving esophageal cancer outcomes, an increasing emphasis is placed on the heart protection in radiation treated esophageal cancer patients. Radiation induced heart complications encompass mainly pericardial disease, cardiomyopathy, coronary artery atherosclerosis, valvular heart disease, and arrhythmias. The most frequent toxicity is pericardial effusion which is usually asymptomatic in the majority of patients. The use of modern radiotherapy techniques is expected to reduce the risk of cardiotoxicity, although this expectation has to be confirmed by clinical data