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A downside to apoptosis in cancer therapy?

Nature Medicine volume 17, pages 780–782 (2011)Cite this article

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A recent study challenges the view that radiation-induced apoptosis is beneficial in tumor therapy by showing that caspase 3–mediated apoptosis in response to ionizing radiation activates a growth signaling cascade in tumor cells, thereby stimulating tumor repopulation (pages 860–866). These results may have important implications for the clinical use of radiotherapy or chemotherapy to induce apoptosis in tumors.

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Figure 1: Huang et al.6 show that cytotoxic oncology therapies induce caspase 3 activation, which, in turn, can generate competing effects on apoptotic cell death and stimulation of tumor growth.

Katie Vicari

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Philip P. Connell and Ralph R. Weichselbaum are in the Department of Radiation and Cellular Oncology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinos, USA.,

    Philip P Connell & Ralph R Weichselbaum

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  1. Philip P Connell
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  2. Ralph R Weichselbaum
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Correspondence to Ralph R Weichselbaum.

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Competing interests

R.R.W. is a consultant to Reflexion Medical, a scientific advisor to Midway Pharmaceuticals, and a board member of and advisor to Catherex.

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Connell, P., Weichselbaum, R. A downside to apoptosis in cancer therapy?. Nat Med 17, 780–782 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm0711-780

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