Frontiers of Cancer Research: The Metastasis Challenge

摘要

Greater than 90% of deaths in cancer patients are due to the metastatic spread of the tumor to vital organs, emphasizing the importance of efforts toward the prevention and treatment of this phenomenon. The ability to block the process of metastasis could have a significant impact on the mortality rates associated with malignancy. As a result, the study of metastasis has been a focus at numerous centers of research, including the National Cancer Institute (NCI). A plethora of new technologies developed over the last decade, including gene expression profiling, have allowed for the identification of a number of genes, many of them strictly confined to the stromal cells associated with the tumor that appear to be significantly involved in the metastatic process. This allows us to enhance our efforts at designing stromal directed therapies to be utilized in combination with more traditional regimens directed at tumor cells. This highly personalized signature of the tumor and tumor microenvironment provides the unprecedented opportunity to develop therapeutic solutions which are also designed to be preventive, in terms of the biologic processes that support development of tumor metastasis. In addition to new therapies, genetic profiling has also led to new ways of thinking about the origins and development of metastasis and metastatic potential. Research at the NCI provides an interesting perspective on inborn genetic traits that predispose an individual to metastasis, should a malignancy develop. The presence of these genetic traits has enormous implications for prophylactic therapy. Investigations such as these continually expand the frontiers of cancer research and hold the potential to contribute to the prevention and control of metastasis and its associated mortality.