Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop more efficient anti-metastatic therapies that will simultaneously target the response of cancer cells to all pro-metastatic factors (e.g., by intracellular upregulation of HO-1) or even to employ as a prophylactic treatment drugs (e.g., steroids or anti-inflammatory drugs) that prevent induction of a pro-metastatic microenvironment induced in various organs after radio-chemotherapy. The gene discussed is HMOX1; the disease is cancer.