Advances in understanding the mechanisms that underlie the interplay between radiation-
invoked immune responses and tumor regression are underway. Emerging applications of
local radiotherapy as an immunologic adjuvant have provided radiation oncologists with a
method for converting malignant cells into endogenous anticancer vaccines. The dispersion
of radiotherapy-induced immune-stimulating tumor antigens released from dying tumor cells
into the surrounding milieu (known as immunogenic cell death, Fig. 1), is one such …