Cancers, Vol. 12, Pages 1649: Exploiting Cancer ’s Tactics to Make Cancer a Manageable Chronic Disease

Cancers, Vol. 12, Pages 1649: Exploiting Cancer’s Tactics to Make Cancer a Manageable Chronic Disease Cancers doi: 10.3390/cancers12061649 Authors: Kambiz Afrasiabi Mark E. Linskey Yi-Hong Zhou The history of modern oncology started around eighty years ago with the introduction of cytotoxic agents such as nitrogen mustard into the clinic, followed by multi-agent chemotherapy protocols. Early success in radiation therapy in Hodgkin lymphoma gave birth to the introduction of radiation therapy into different cancer treatment protocols. Along with better understanding of cancer biology, we developed drugs targeting cancer-related cellular and genetic aberrancies. Discovery of the crucial role of vasculature in maintenance, survival, and growth of a tumor opened the way to the development of anti-angiogenic agents. A better understanding of T-cell regulatory pathways advanced immunotherapy. Awareness of stem-like cancer cells and their role in cancer metastasis and local recurrence led to the development of drugs targeting them. At the same time, sequential and rapidly accelerating advances in imaging and surgical technology have markedly increased our ability to safely remove ≥90% of tumor cells. While we have advanced our ability to kill cells from multiple directions, we have still failed to stop most types of cancer from recurring. Here we analyze the tactics employed in cancer evolution; namely, chromosomal instability (CIN), intra-tumoral heterogenei...
Source: Cancers - Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Tags: Review Source Type: research