Institute of Immunobiology, Kantonsspital St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Internal Medicine V, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria.
Stem Cells Transl Med. 2018 Jun;7(6):495-501. doi: 10.1002/sctm.17-0289. Epub 2018 Apr 17.
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common malignancies worldwide. In spite of various attempts to ameliorate outcome by escalating treatment, significant improvement is lacking particularly in the adjuvant setting. It has been proposed that cancer stem cells (CSCs) and the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) are at least partially responsible for therapy resistance in CRC. The epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) was one of the first CSC antigens to be described. Furthermore, an EpCAM-specific antibody (edrecolomab) has the merit of having launched the era of monoclonal antibody treatment in oncology in the 1990s. However, despite great initial enthusiasm, monoclonal antibody treatment has not proven successful in the adjuvant treatment of CRC patients. In the meantime, new insights into the function of EpCAM in CRC have emerged and new drugs targeting various epitopes have been developed. In this review article, we provide an update on the role of EpCAM in CSCs and EMT, and emphasize the potential predictive selection criteria for novel treatment strategies and refined clinical trial design. Stem Cells Translational Medicine 2018;7:495-501.
结直肠癌（CRC）是全球最常见的恶性肿瘤之一。尽管通过升级治疗方法进行了各种尝试来改善预后，但在辅助治疗中，特别是在辅助治疗中，仍缺乏显著改善。有人提出，癌症干细胞（CSC）和上皮-间充质转化（EMT）至少部分导致了 CRC 的治疗耐药性。上皮细胞黏附分子（EpCAM）是最早描述的 CSC 抗原之一。此外，EpCAM 特异性抗体（edrecolomab）具有在 20 世纪 90 年代开创肿瘤单克隆抗体治疗时代的优点。然而，尽管最初的热情很高，但单克隆抗体治疗在 CRC 患者的辅助治疗中并未被证明是成功的。与此同时，EpCAM 在 CRC 中的作用出现了新的见解，针对各种表位的新药也已开发出来。在这篇综述文章中，我们提供了 EpCAM 在 CSC 和 EMT 中的作用的最新信息，并强调了新型治疗策略和改良临床试验设计的潜在预测选择标准。干细胞转化医学 2018;7:495-501。
