A New Twist on Radiation Oncology: Low-Dose Irradiation Elicits Immunostimulatory Macrophages that Unlock Barriers to Tumor Immunotherapy

Tumor-infiltrating macrophages typically promote angiogenesis while suppressing antitumoral T cell responses. In this issue of Cancer Cell, Klug and colleagues report that clinically-feasible, low-dose irradiation redirects macrophage differentiation from a tumor-promoting/immunosuppressive state to one that enables cytotoxic T cells to infiltrate tumors and kill cancer cells, rendering immunotherapy successful in mice.