What is it about?
Cancer cells contain a subpopulation of cancer stem cells (CSCs) that can remain after traditional oncology therapies (e.g.: surgical resection of a tumor, radiation therapy (RT), and chemotherapy (ChT)), and may regenerate the original tumor or metastases, which are resistant to standard anticancer treatments. This resistance can be activated in various CSC populations, via different signal transduction pathways that lead to tumorigenesis and metastatic spread. This mini-review ‘deciphers’ the most important signaling pathways (e.g.: NANOG, Wnt/β-catenin, Hedgehog, Notch, STAT 3, and PI3K) that currently play a role in the developing of innovative anticancer therapies.
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Why is it important?
This article presents some emerging strategies, such as: Single-Cell Sequencing (SCS), Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs), Disseminated Tumor Cells (DTCs), cell-free DNA (cfDNA), and circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), which can be useful for the detection, early diagnosis, prognosis and monitoring of patients with various, difficult to treat malignancies (e.g.: breast or gastrointestinal cancers).
Perspectives
Personalized strategies (such as the agents targeting CSCs), in which the cancer heterogeneity is precisely characterized prior to the initiation of therapy are urgently needed. For this reason, an expedite translation of research findings into clinical settings will guide the precision treatment, for individual patients with the most aggressive malignancies.
Katarzyna Rygiel
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Precision Medicine Approaches to Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment: Focus on Cancer Stem Cell Biomarkers, The Open Biomarkers Journal, February 2018, Bentham Science Publishers,
DOI: 10.2174/1875318301808010009.
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