Cancer can be made worse by high-dose radiotherapy, surprising new study finds

Radioactive treatment is among the first-line therapies used to effectively target and destroy cancer cells.

But the same radiotherapy could also be a double-edged sword that ends up promoting the distant metastasis of tumours, a recent study has demonstrated.

Radiation therapy is often used alone or in combination with surgery and chemotherapy to control the growth of localised cancer tumours.

However, scientists in the United States have discovered that high doses of radiation could paradoxically lead to the growth of existing metastatic tumours, even when these tumours had not directly received radiation therapy.

The groundbreaking work by researchers at the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Centre was led by China-born biochemist Yang Kaiting.

Yang became an assistant professor in the university’s radiology and oncology department in 2023, after more than five years as a postdoctoral researcher. She returned to China last year to join South China University of Technology’s school of biomedical sciences and engineering as a professor.

South China Morning Post