Comparative Therapeutic Exploitability of Acute Adaptation Mechanisms to Photon and Proton Irradiation in 3D Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma Cell Cultures (vol 13, 1190, 2021)

Summary: Treatment resistance is a major obstacle for HNSCC patients, and proton beam therapy may offer benefits due to optimized dose distribution. However, molecular data on tumor cell responses to proton irradiation are limited. Despite differences in kinome profiles upon photon and proton irradiation, they were not therapeutically exploitable. Pharmacological inhibition of selected targets showed sensitization independent of radiation type. High-precision proton beam therapy is intensively discussed as a potential approach for better tumor control.