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The importance of developing therapies targeting the biological spectrum of metastatic disease

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Abstract

Great progress has been made in cancer therapeutics. However, metastasis remains the predominant cause of death from cancer. Importantly, metastasis can manifest many years after initial treatment of the primary cancer. This is because cancer cells can remain dormant before forming symptomatic metastasis. An important question is whether metastasis research should focus on the early treatment of metastases, before they are clinically evident (“overt”), or on developing treatments to stop overt metastasis (stage IV cancer). In this commentary we want to clarify why it is important that all avenues of treatment for stage IV patients are developed. Indeed, future treatments are expected to go beyond the mere shrinkage of overt metastases and will include strategies that prevent disseminated tumor cells from emerging from dormancy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, 37232, USA

    Andries Zijlstra & Ariana Von Lersner

  2. Department of Molecular and Cellular Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA

    Dihua Yu

  3. Department of Anatomy and Structural Biology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY, USA

    Lucia Borrello

  4. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tufts University, Medfort, MA, USA

    Madeleine Oudin

  5. Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA

    Yibin Kang

  6. The Francis Crick Institute, 1 Midland Road, London, NW1 1AT, UK

    Erik Sahai

  7. Program of Cancer Biology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 37232, USA

    Andries Zijlstra, Ariana Von Lersner & Barbara Fingleton

  8. Experimental and Clinical Research Center, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, and Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine, 13125, Berlin, Germany

    Ulrike Stein

  9. German Cancer Consortium (DKTK), 69120, Heidelberg, Germany

    Ulrike Stein

  10. Garvan Institute of Medical Research & The Kinghorn Cancer Centre, Cancer Division, Sydney, NSW, 2010, Australia

    Thomas R. Cox

  11. St Vincent’s Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2010, Australia

    Thomas R. Cox

  12. Institute for Health and Sport, Victoria University, Melbourne, VIC, 3011, Australia

    John T. Price

  13. Australian Institute for Musculoskeletal Science (AIMSS), Department of Medicine Western Health, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, 3010, Australia

    John T. Price

  14. Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, 3800, Australia

    John T. Price

  15. Department of Oral Function & Molecular Biology, Ohu University School of Dentistry, 31-1 Misumido, Tomita-machi, Koriyama, 963-8611, Japan

    Yasumasa Kato

  16. Department of Oncological Sciences and Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    Alana L. Welm

  17. Division of Hematology and Oncology, Department of Medicine, Department of Otolaryngology, Tisch Cancer Institute, Black Family Stem Cell Institute, Precision Immunology Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA

    Julio A. Aguirre-Ghiso

Authors
  1. Andries Zijlstra
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  2. Ariana Von Lersner
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  3. Dihua Yu
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  4. Lucia Borrello
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  5. Madeleine Oudin
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  6. Yibin Kang
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  7. Erik Sahai
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  8. Barbara Fingleton
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  9. Ulrike Stein
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  10. Thomas R. Cox
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  11. John T. Price
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  12. Yasumasa Kato
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  13. Alana L. Welm
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  14. Julio A. Aguirre-Ghiso
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The Board Members of the Metastasis Research Society

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Julio A. Aguirre-Ghiso.

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Zijlstra, A., Von Lersner, A., Yu, D. et al. The importance of developing therapies targeting the biological spectrum of metastatic disease. Clin Exp Metastasis 36, 305–309 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10585-019-09972-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10585-019-09972-3

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