Tumor cell dormancy

Metastasis is the primary cause of death in cancer patients and current treatments fail to provide durable responses. Efforts to treat metastatic disease are hindered by the fact that metastatic cells often remain dormant for prolonged intervals of years, or even decades. Tumor dormancy reflects the...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Gomis i Cabré, Roger, Gawrzak, Sylwia
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2016
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de la UB
OAI Identifier:oai:diposit.ub.edu:2445/105636
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/105636
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Cèl·lules canceroses
Tumors
Metàstasi
Cancer cells
Metastasis
Descripción
Sumario:Metastasis is the primary cause of death in cancer patients and current treatments fail to provide durable responses. Efforts to treat metastatic disease are hindered by the fact that metastatic cells often remain dormant for prolonged intervals of years, or even decades. Tumor dormancy reflects the capability of disseminated tumor cells (DTCs), or micrometastases, to evade treatment and remain at low numbers after primary tumor resection. Unfortunately, dormant cells will eventually produce overt metastasis. Innovations are needed to understand metastatic dormancy and improve cancer detection and treatment. Currently, few models exist that faithfully recapitulate metastatic dormancy and metastasis to clinically relevant tissues, such as the bone. Herein, we discuss recent advances describing genetic cell-autonomous and systemic or local changes in the microenvironment that have been shown to endow DTCs with properties to survive and eventually colonize distant organs.