Ralph R. Weichselbaum, MD

The article by Dr. Weinstein is a discussion of the newer surgical options available for the treatment of patients with laryngeal cancer. Several aspects of the article deserve mention.

The two research groups from Long Island Jewish Medical Center and Yale University have collaborated to write an excellent overview of the biological basis of radio-sensitivity, especially as it applies to radiotherapy. The content of the paper reflects the excellence of these investigators’ contributions to the field of radiobiology. It is particularly refreshing to read an account of radiobiology that does not resort to the mathematical overanalysis that has plagued the field in the past.

Drs. Coleman and Stevenson have done a superb job in covering diverse aspects of biology relevant to clinical radiotherapy. They note that recent advances in understanding DNA repair may lead to practical applications in radiotherapy. For example, a dual benefit of unraveling DNA repair mechanisms may be to identify which tumors are the most likely to respond to therapeutic radiation and which patients are most likely to develop radiation-induced tumors. The authors point out that gene induction observed in vitro following large radiation doses may not necessarily be relevant to doses employed clinically. Coleman and Stevenson highlight the importance of defining the sequence of genes induced by radiation in clinically relevant doses.