Ion transport and cancer: from initiation to metastasis

摘要

The complex pathophysiology of cancer, involving several hundreds of genes still remains a poorly understood area of biomedicine. This is reflected in the clinic where management of cancer frequently suffers from misdiagnosis and highly undesirable off-target side effects in treatment, obvious in chemotherapy. Consequently, there is great unmet need for improved diagnostic and therapeutic methods. In recent years, ion channels and transporters (including exchangers, pumps and associated enzymes), collectively referred to here as ‘ion transport mechanisms’ (ITMs) have emerged as novel mechanisms driving the cancer process, thus offering novel clinical possibilities. This is the first state-of-the-art volume dedicated to the involvement and clinical potential of ITMs in cancer.