Medical Oncology Department, Hospital Universitario Virgen del Rocio (HUVR), Avenida de Manuel Siurot s/n, 41013 Seville, Spain.
Institute of Biomedicine of Seville (IBiS), Hospital Universitario Virgen del Rocio (HUVR), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Universidad de Sevilla, Avenida de Manuel Siurot s/n, 41013 Seville, Spain.
Int J Mol Sci. 2024 Jun 5;25(11):6220. doi: 10.3390/ijms25116220.
The cancer stem cell (SC) theory proposes that a population of SCs serves as the driving force behind fundamental tumor processes, including metastasis, recurrence, and resistance to therapy. The standard of care for patients with stage III and high-risk stage II colorectal cancer (CRC) includes surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy. Fluoropyrimidines and their combination with oxaliplatin increased the cure rates, being able to eradicate the occult metastatic SC in a fraction of patients. The treatment for unresectable metastatic CRC is based on chemotherapy, antibodies to VEGF and EGFR, and tyrosine-kinase inhibitors. Immunotherapy is used in MSI-H tumors. Currently used drugs target dividing cells and, while often effective at debulking tumor mass, these agents have largely failed to cure metastatic disease. SCs are generated either due to genetic and epigenetic alterations in stem/progenitor cells or to the dedifferentiation of somatic cells where diverse signaling pathways such as Wnt/β-catenin, Hedgehog, Notch, TGF-β/SMAD, PI3K/Akt/mTOR, NF-κB, JAK/STAT, DNA damage response, and Hippo-YAP play a key role. Anti-neoplastic treatments could be improved by elimination of SCs, becoming an attractive target for the design of novel agents. Here, we present a review of clinical trials assessing the efficacy of targeted treatment focusing on these pathways in CRC.
癌症干细胞 (SC) 理论提出,SC 群体是肿瘤基本过程(包括转移、复发和对治疗的耐药性)的驱动力。III 期和高危 II 期结直肠癌 (CRC) 患者的标准治疗包括手术和辅助化疗。氟嘧啶及其与奥沙利铂的联合应用提高了治愈率,能够在部分患者中根除隐匿性转移性 SC。不可切除的转移性 CRC 的治疗基于化疗、抗血管内皮生长因子 (VEGF) 和表皮生长因子受体 (EGFR) 的抗体以及酪氨酸激酶抑制剂。免疫疗法用于 MSI-H 肿瘤。目前使用的药物靶向分裂细胞,虽然在肿瘤体积缩小方面通常有效,但这些药物在很大程度上未能治愈转移性疾病。SC 要么是由于干细胞/祖细胞中的遗传和表观遗传改变产生的,要么是由于体细胞去分化产生的,其中多种信号通路(如 Wnt/β-catenin、Hedgehog、Notch、TGF-β/SMAD、PI3K/Akt/mTOR、NF-κB、JAK/STAT、DNA 损伤反应和 Hippo-YAP)发挥关键作用。通过消除 SC,可以改善抗肿瘤治疗,成为设计新型药物的有吸引力的靶点。在这里,我们回顾了评估靶向治疗这些 CRC 通路疗效的临床试验。
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