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Freiburg physician from the Department of Radiation Oncology receives award for outstanding scientific work / Findings can help to further personalize radiotherapy for head and neck cancer patients

Dr. Alexander Rühle received the Best Paper of the Year Award 2021 in the field of medicine from the German Society for Biological Radiation Research (DeGBS) at the end of September. In the award-winning research paper, the assistant physician at the Department of Radiation Oncology and member of the Translational Radiation Oncology Section at the Medical Center - University of Freiburg investigated how the effectiveness of radiotherapy in patients with head and neck cancer can be predicted on the basis of oxygen deficiency in tumors, known as tumor hypoxia, and an immune system-inhibiting protein. The publication was produced in collaboration with the Center for Pathology and the Department of Nuclear Medicine at the Medical Center - University of Freiburg and appeared in the journal "Theranostics" in July 2020.

"The prize is great recognition for our research," says Rühle. "One of our most important goals is to identify biomarkers for personalized radiotherapy. In this way, we can ensure that everyone receives the treatment that suits them best."

Research results from recent years, in which the scientists from the "Translational Radiation Oncology" section led by Prof. Dr. Dr. Nils Henrik Nicolay, Senior Consultant at the Department of Radiation Oncology, have been significantly involved, have already shown that patients who do not experience a reduction in oxygen deficiency in the tumor in the first two weeks of radiation have a poorer prognosis. "This means that a poor response to radiotherapy can be detected early on in the treatment and patients can benefit from therapy escalation if necessary," explains Rühle. The award-winning research work is based on a prospective imaging study (FMISO study) led by Prof. Dr. Anca-Ligia Grosu, Medical Director of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Medical Center - University of Freiburg. Rühle and colleagues were able to describe for the first time that the combination of a lack of response to tumor hypoxia and high expression of a protein that inhibits the anti-tumor activity of the immune system has even better prognostic significance for the efficacy of radiotherapy.

Rühle, A., Grosu, A. L., Wiedenmann, N., Mix, M., Stoian, R., Niedermann, G., Baltas, D., Werner, M., Weber, W. A., Kayser, G., & Nicolay, N. H. (2020). Hypoxia dynamics on FMISO-PET in combination with PD-1/PD-L1 expression has an impact on the clinical outcome of patients with Head-and-neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma undergoing Chemoradiation. Theranostics, 10(20), 9395-9406.

https://doi.org/10.7150/thno.48392

Contact:
Dr. Alexander Rühle
Department of Radiation Oncology
Uniklinik Freiburg
alexander.ruehle@uniklinik-freiburg.de