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Questions to guide cancer evolution as a framework for furthering progress in cancer research and sustainable patient outcomes

We appear to be faced with ‘two truths’ in cancer—one of major advances and successes and another one of remaining short-comings and significant challenges. Despite decades of research and substantial progress in treating cancer, most patients with metastatic cancer still experience great suffering...

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Autores principales: Somarelli, Jason A., DeGregori, James, Gerlinger, Marco, Heng, Henry H., Marusyk, Andriy, Welch, Danny R., Laukien, Frank H.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9252949/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35781581
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12032-022-01721-z
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author Somarelli, Jason A.
DeGregori, James
Gerlinger, Marco
Heng, Henry H.
Marusyk, Andriy
Welch, Danny R.
Laukien, Frank H.
author_facet Somarelli, Jason A.
DeGregori, James
Gerlinger, Marco
Heng, Henry H.
Marusyk, Andriy
Welch, Danny R.
Laukien, Frank H.
author_sort Somarelli, Jason A.
collection PubMed
description We appear to be faced with ‘two truths’ in cancer—one of major advances and successes and another one of remaining short-comings and significant challenges. Despite decades of research and substantial progress in treating cancer, most patients with metastatic cancer still experience great suffering and poor outcomes. Metastatic cancer, for the vast majority of patients, remains incurable. In the context of advanced disease, many clinical trials report only incremental advances in progression-free and overall survival. At the same time, the breadth and depth of new scientific discoveries in cancer research are staggering. These discoveries are providing increasing mechanistic detail into the inner workings of normal and cancer cells, as well as into cancer–host interactions; however, progress remains frustratingly slow in translating these discoveries into improved diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic interventions. Despite enormous advances in cancer research and progress in progression-free survival, or even cures, for certain cancer types—with earlier detection followed by surgical, adjuvant, targeted, or immuno- therapies, we must challenge ourselves to do even better where patients do not respond or experience evolving therapy resistance. We propose that defining cancer evolution as a separate domain of study and integrating the concept of evolvability as a core hallmark of cancer can help position scientific discoveries into a framework that can be more effectively harnessed to improve cancer detection and therapy outcomes and to eventually decrease cancer lethality. In this perspective, we present key questions and suggested areas of study that must be considered—not only by the field of cancer evolution, but by all investigators researching, diagnosing, and treating cancer.
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spelling pubmed-92529492022-07-06 Questions to guide cancer evolution as a framework for furthering progress in cancer research and sustainable patient outcomes Somarelli, Jason A. DeGregori, James Gerlinger, Marco Heng, Henry H. Marusyk, Andriy Welch, Danny R. Laukien, Frank H. Med Oncol Perspectives in Oncology We appear to be faced with ‘two truths’ in cancer—one of major advances and successes and another one of remaining short-comings and significant challenges. Despite decades of research and substantial progress in treating cancer, most patients with metastatic cancer still experience great suffering and poor outcomes. Metastatic cancer, for the vast majority of patients, remains incurable. In the context of advanced disease, many clinical trials report only incremental advances in progression-free and overall survival. At the same time, the breadth and depth of new scientific discoveries in cancer research are staggering. These discoveries are providing increasing mechanistic detail into the inner workings of normal and cancer cells, as well as into cancer–host interactions; however, progress remains frustratingly slow in translating these discoveries into improved diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic interventions. Despite enormous advances in cancer research and progress in progression-free survival, or even cures, for certain cancer types—with earlier detection followed by surgical, adjuvant, targeted, or immuno- therapies, we must challenge ourselves to do even better where patients do not respond or experience evolving therapy resistance. We propose that defining cancer evolution as a separate domain of study and integrating the concept of evolvability as a core hallmark of cancer can help position scientific discoveries into a framework that can be more effectively harnessed to improve cancer detection and therapy outcomes and to eventually decrease cancer lethality. In this perspective, we present key questions and suggested areas of study that must be considered—not only by the field of cancer evolution, but by all investigators researching, diagnosing, and treating cancer. Springer US 2022-07-04 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC9252949/ /pubmed/35781581 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12032-022-01721-z Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Perspectives in Oncology
Somarelli, Jason A.
DeGregori, James
Gerlinger, Marco
Heng, Henry H.
Marusyk, Andriy
Welch, Danny R.
Laukien, Frank H.
Questions to guide cancer evolution as a framework for furthering progress in cancer research and sustainable patient outcomes
title Questions to guide cancer evolution as a framework for furthering progress in cancer research and sustainable patient outcomes
title_full Questions to guide cancer evolution as a framework for furthering progress in cancer research and sustainable patient outcomes
title_fullStr Questions to guide cancer evolution as a framework for furthering progress in cancer research and sustainable patient outcomes
title_full_unstemmed Questions to guide cancer evolution as a framework for furthering progress in cancer research and sustainable patient outcomes
title_short Questions to guide cancer evolution as a framework for furthering progress in cancer research and sustainable patient outcomes
title_sort questions to guide cancer evolution as a framework for furthering progress in cancer research and sustainable patient outcomes
topic Perspectives in Oncology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9252949/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35781581
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12032-022-01721-z
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