Strahlentherapie und Onkologie - Call for Papers: Special Issue Gender-specific differences in radiation oncology treatment

Radiation oncology plays a crucial role in modern cancer therapy, as about 50% of cancer patients receive radiotherapy. With cancer rates increasing by approximately 2.5% per year, the importance of radiotherapy is expected to increase even further over time. Ongoing technological advancements, improved treatment strategies and radiation techniques all focus on mechanical and anatomical precision. Furthermore, most individually tailored treatment regimens aim to deliver high quality treatments while ensuring patient safety while minimizing toxicity to normal tissue.

However, a fundamental but often overlooked aspect of both research and treatment planning is the consideration of gender-specific responses in radiation oncology. While it is known, that there are sex-specific differences in e.g. the effectiveness of drugs or chemotherapy, sex-specific differences in response to radiation have not been studied in depth. These differences, however, should be expected, especially as females, for example, have an additional absolute risk of solid tumors after radiation exposure that is up to two-fold increased than that of males. Further, preclinical research has shown DNA-mediated, sex-specific differences in radiation response. These factors are likely to influence treatment outcomes and side effects, emphasizing their importance and should thus be considered for optimal patient outcomes.

Therefore, this special issue focuses on gender-specific differences in radiation oncology treatment. It will include manuscripts examining gender-specific differences in the following areas, among others:

• Radiation sensitivity
• Treatment response rates
• Normal tissue toxicity and radiation induced side-effects
• Hormonal influence of treatment outcome
• Psychosocial factors 
• Clinical trial representation
• Parity in radiation oncology
• Reconciliation of family and career in radiation oncology

This special issue serves as a comprehensive platform that collects existing knowledge and aids as a basis for future research projects and trials.

We warmly welcome your esteemed contributions to this special issue by June 30th 2024 through the journals submission system (this opens in a new tab).

I order to ensure proper assignment to the designated managing editor, kindly indicate your submission to the special issue by selecting “yes” when prompted and choose the “Special Issue: Gender-specific differences in radiation oncology treatment”

We eagerly anticipate receiving your submissions.

Kind regards, also on behalf of the Editors-in-Chief and all Editors of the journal,

Lisa Deloch, Stefanie Corradini, Katharina Hintelmann