An article by Saif Ahmad (MRC Cancer Unit) recently published in Clinical Cancer Research, focused on improving the number of effective drug-radiotherapy combinations entering the clinic. Richard Baird, Academic Consultant in Breast Cancer Therapeutics, was a co-author on this article and is leading the CamBMT1 trial which is a multi-centre early phase study examining the role of combining drugs with radiotherapy in the treatment of brain metastases. 
 
Radiotherapy is a critical component of cancer treatment and whilst there has been much interest in recent years to improve responses to radiotherapy through combining it with novel drugs – progress in this area has been disappointing. In February 2018, the FDA-AACR-ASTRO Clinical Development of Drug-Radiotherapy Combinations Workshop took aim at this issue, convening stakeholders to discuss ways to develop effective combinations. The workshop was co-sponsored by the US Food and Drug Administration, the American Society for Therapeutic Radiation Oncology, and the American Association for Cancer Research with support from Cancer Research UK. Co-organisers and attendees of the Workshop, from different stakeholder groups, co-authored the article to present the key strategies to help overcome the challenges to taking drug-radiotherapy combinations to the clinic.