Treatment of radiation fibrosis

Abstract

Cancer survivorship initiatives highlight the need for strategies to manage the consequences of cancer treatment, including fibrosis occurring after curative radiotherapy (http://www.ncsi.org.uk/). Although evidence exists for effective treatment for radiation fibrosis, there is no therapeutic strategy of proven benefit. In order to define novel therapeutic strategies for treatment of radiation fibrosis, better understanding of the pathogenesis of radiation related normal tissue injury is required, such that targeted treatment strategies can be defined, but the greatest hurdle is in translating this step into the clinic. In this review, the challenges of designing effective clinical strategies for testing anti-fibrotic treatments and specifically for the introduction of targeted treatments into clinical trials will be discussed.