Division of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Department of Surgery, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92103, USA.
Curr Med Chem. 2012;19(35):6056-64.
Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is a highly prevalent and deadly cancer that has not shown improvements in survival rates for many years. Current treatments of HNSCC include surgical resection, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy, which are relatively ineffective for the management of recurrent or metastatic tumors. Cancer stem cells (CSC) within HNSCC offer an attractive therapeutic target for improving the survival rates for such cases, as eliminating the cells responsible for tumor initiation will theoretically prevent the onset of metastasis and recurrence. Since CSCs were initially isolated from HNSCC, there have been a handful of papers published that examine the potential of certain agents to selectively inhibit HNSCC CSCs, although a review of these papers has not yet been performed. Here we review the current literature for potential compounds or particles which have been proposed to selectively target the HNSCC CSC subpopulation. The various agents that have been tested so far include RNA interference, cell-based immunotherapy, antibodies, chemicals, microRNA precursors, and lentiviral microRNA vectors. Although many of these compounds showed considerable promise, few, if any, of the studies provided comprehensive evidence showing that the proposed agents were specific to CSCs and were considerably more effective than conventional therapy (radiation, cisplatin, etc). The proposed treatments in these studies require further investigation in these two regards, especially through rigorous in vivo experimentation, before they can be considered as true potential CSC inhibitors, let alone be considered for use in clinical trials.
头颈部鳞状细胞癌（HNSCC）是一种高发且致命的癌症，多年来其生存率并未提高。目前 HNSCC 的治疗方法包括手术切除、放疗和化疗，但对于复发性或转移性肿瘤的治疗效果相对较差。HNSCC 中的癌症干细胞（CSC）为提高此类病例的生存率提供了一个有吸引力的治疗靶点，因为消除负责肿瘤起始的细胞将从理论上防止转移和复发的发生。由于 CSC 最初是从 HNSCC 中分离出来的，因此已经发表了一些研究论文来研究某些药物选择性抑制 HNSCC CSC 的潜力，尽管尚未对这些论文进行综述。在这里，我们综述了目前关于可能的化合物或颗粒的文献，这些化合物或颗粒被提议选择性靶向 HNSCC CSC 亚群。迄今为止已经测试了各种试剂，包括 RNA 干扰、基于细胞的免疫疗法、抗体、化学物质、miRNA 前体和慢病毒 miRNA 载体。尽管其中许多化合物显示出相当大的前景，但如果有任何研究提供了全面的证据表明所提出的试剂是专门针对 CSC 的，并且比常规疗法（辐射、顺铂等）更有效，则很少有研究提供全面的证据。这些研究中的提议治疗方法在这两个方面都需要进一步研究，特别是通过严格的体内实验，才能被认为是真正的潜在 CSC 抑制剂，更不用说考虑用于临床试验了。
