The Role of Oxygen Tension Distribution on the Radiation Response of Human Breast Carcinoma

The response of tumors to radiation is heterogeneous even in animal tumor systems where tumors all originate from the same cell culture, are implanted in genetically similar age-matched animals in a constant anatomic locationl. Hence great heterogeneity of response exists even in situations where intrinsic genetic or epigenetic factors are minimally variable. Several metabolic factors are known to influence the probability of tumor control after radiation. These metabolic factors are also known to vary widely between tumors in humans2,3 and even in animal tumor models. Heterogeneous variables include tumor oxygen tension distribution, glutathione content, glucose delivery and utilization ra…