Radiation enhances cisplatin-sensitivity in human cervical squamous cancer cells in vitro

PURPOSE AND METHODS OF INVESTIGATION: Cisplatin (CDDP) is regularly used in concurrent chemoradiotherapy in patients with advanced cervical cancer although an effective protocol of chemoradiotherapy with CDDP has not yet been established. In search of a better chemoradiotherapy protocol, we investigated both CDDP effects on radiosensitivity and irradiation effects on CDDP-sensitivity using the radiosensitive human cervical squamous cell carcinoma cell line ME180.

Results: We found that CDDP did not affect cellular radiosensitivity, and that irradiation significantly enhanced CDDP-sensitivity. Moreover, all the four post-irradiation surviving subclones obtained from repetitively irradiated ME180 cells showed significantly higher CDDP sensitivities than those of the non-irradiated parent cells.

Conclusion: These results suggest that an effective protocol would involve the concurrent administration of CDDP with radiotherapy and further administration following completion of radiotherapy in order to achieve higher CDDP-sensitivities.

Cisplatin; Chemoradiotherapy; Cervical cancer; Squamous cell carcinoma; Radiosensitivity

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