1/ Our latest - @JAMAOncology Viewpoint! Ablative radiotherapy has a dual effect on metastatic cancer that changes how we should interpret progression after treatment.

Sean Pitroda, whose work has raised concerns about the Badscopal effect, shares a few words of wisdom at #ASTRO26. Including the importance of total metastatic ablation of all visible sites in case irradiation of one tumor signals another unirradiated to grow.

RT @xrtGenomics: #radonc has gigantic oppurtunity to improve care in metastatic cancer. But we need to understand our impact on the biology…

🔥Hot off the press: A new study in @Cancer_Cell from Dr. Weichselbaum (@rweichselbaum) and colleagues show how high-dose radiation increases TET2 expression, activating immunosuppressive MDSCs to drive tumor progression. @UChicagoRadonc @UChicagoMed ow.ly/zj6J50ZOR6z

Out in @Cancer_Cell: TET2 inhibition reprograms myeloid cells to potentiate radiotherapy and curb metastasis sciencedirect.com/science/ar… @rweichselbaum @UChicagoRadonc @UChicagoMed @Ludwig_Cancer @hhmi_science

Who among patients with mCRC still has a chance for cure? Honored to see @captodayonline feature the science behind PersonaCRC and the pioneering work of @rweichselbaum @SeanPitroda captodayonline.com/in-select… #ColorectalCancer #PrecisionOncology #Pathology #AI #CancerResearch

Congrats to @rweichselbaum and team on their @ScienceAdvances paper: engineering probiotic Bifidobacterium as a "bugs as drugs" platform to deliver tumor-targeted IL-2 and boost RT, chemo, and immunotherapy responses in pancreatic cancer. @UChicagoMed science.org/doi/10.1126/scia…

We are pleased to share PersonaCRC - the first clinically validated biomarker for oligometastatic CRC - is available to order: persona-dx.com/how-it-works Based on prior work from our group: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2972… pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3747… pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3624…

Hot Topics in Lung Cancer Basic and Translational Research is coming up! Submit your abstract by april 15 and come and visit in (hopefully) sunny Dublin! Speakers include Drew Pardoll, @FSkoulidis @DrJNaidoo @CottrellLab @SeanPitroda among a glittering line up! #lcsm

⁦@SeanPitroda⁩ speaking in the Radiotherapy Overcome Immunotherapy Resistance Session ⁦@the_RSS⁩ 2026

IFN signaling at the nexus of the radiotherapy response in malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors: doi.org/10.1172/JCI202266 Sean P. Pitroda @SeanPitroda, Ralph Weichselbaum @rweichselbaum & team @UChicago provide a Commentary on Iowis Zhu et al.: doi.org/10.1172/JCI195652

💬 Viewpoint: The badscopal effect following ablative radiotherapy signals not failure but biological reorganization, prompting serial metastasis-directed therapy in selected patients. ja.ma/4k0HzJk

Radiotherapy duality in metastatic disease: inhibiting seeding, unmasking dormancy Viewpoint | jamanetwork.com/journals/jam… @SeanPitroda @rweichselbaum @JAMAOnc @JAMANetwork Key insights 🟢 Metastasis-directed radiotherapy (MDT) suppresses metastatic seeding from treated lesions 🟢 Ablative RT can unmask dormant distant disease (“badscopal effect”) rather than promote spread 🟢 Post-MDT progression reflects biological reorganization, not treatment failure 🟢 Radiation reshapes systemic immunity (amphiregulin-mediated), enabling dormant clone outgrowth 🟢 Metastatic disease should be viewed as dynamic and iterable, not static Clinical implications 🟢 Strong rationale for serial MDT, not one-time local therapy 🟢 Explains limited benefit in trials restricting MDT to a single round 🟢 Supports treat-all-visible-disease strategies when feasible 🟢 Calls for MDT personalization using immune phenotype, clonality, and metastatic kinetics @seanmcbride @drjefstathiou @SeanPitroda @rweichselbaum @JAMAOnc @JAMANetwork @seanmcbride @drjefstathiou #Radiotherapy #OligometastaticDisease #Metastasis #CancerBiology #MDT #Oncology #JAMAOncology

I think Sean's thinking here has been clear from the get go. There's no claim of accelerated progression of non-irradiated mets in the SBRT arm compared to the non-SBRT arm. The claim is simply that one biological driver of out-of-field progression, when it occurs post-SBRT, acknowledging it occurs LESS FREQUENTLY in the SBRT arms of the trials mentioned, may be amphiregulin driven immune suppression. His work has identified a druggable target that may make the SBRT arms of oligomet trials even more successful than they've already been. Kudos to him! #radonc

In a viewpoint, Sean Pitroda, MD and Ralph Weichselbaum, MD emphasizes the need to personalize treatment based on tumor biology, immune profiles, and metastatic patterns rather than relying on a single treatment. @SeanPitroda @rweichselbaum @LudwigCancer ow.ly/BGBL50XvWcf