CEDOC, Chronic Diseases Research Centre, NOVA Medical School | Faculdade de Ciências Médicas, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
Adv Exp Med Biol. 2020;1219:161-185. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-34025-4_9.
The behavior of cancer is undoubtedly affected by stroma. Macrophages belong to this microenvironment and their presence correlates with reduced survival in most cancers. After a tumor-induced "immunoediting", these monocytes/macrophages, originally the first line of defense against tumor cells, undergo a phenotypic switch and become tumor-supportive and immunosuppressive.The influence of these tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) on cancer is present in all traits of carcinogenesis. These cells participate in tumor initiation and growth, migration, vascularization, invasion and metastasis. Although metastasis is extremely clinically relevant, this step is always reliant on the angiogenic ability of tumors. Therefore, the formation of new blood vessels in tumors assumes particular importance as a limiting step for disease progression.Herein, the once unsuspected roles of macrophages in cancer will be discussed and their importance as a promising strategy to treat this group of diseases will be reminded.
肿瘤的行为无疑受到基质的影响。巨噬细胞属于这种微环境，它们的存在与大多数癌症患者生存率降低相关。在肿瘤诱导的“免疫编辑”后，这些单核细胞/巨噬细胞，最初是抵抗肿瘤细胞的第一道防线，经历表型转换，成为支持肿瘤和免疫抑制的细胞。这些肿瘤相关巨噬细胞（TAMs）对癌症的影响存在于癌变的所有特征中。这些细胞参与肿瘤的起始和生长、迁移、血管生成、浸润和转移。尽管转移在临床上非常重要，但这一步总是依赖于肿瘤的血管生成能力。因此，肿瘤中新生血管的形成作为疾病进展的限制步骤具有特别重要的意义。在此，将讨论巨噬细胞在癌症中的作用，以及它们作为治疗这组疾病的一种有前途的策略的重要性。
