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Genetic disparity between primary tumours, disseminated tumour cells, and manifest metastasis
Author(s) -
Stoecklein Nikolas H.,
Klein Christoph A.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
international journal of cancer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.475
H-Index - 234
eISSN - 1097-0215
pISSN - 0020-7136
DOI - 10.1002/ijc.24916
Subject(s) - metastasis , pathology , biology , tumour heterogeneity , genetic heterogeneity , primary tumor , cancer research , cancer cell , cancer , medicine , phenotype , genetics , gene
Recent genetic analyses of paired samples from primary tumours and disseminated tumour cells have uncovered a bewildering genetic disparity. It was therefore proposed that ectopically residing tumour cells disseminate early and develop independently into metastases parallel to the primary tumour. Alternatively, these cells may represent an irrelevant cell population unable to spawn metastases whereas only cells that disseminated late in primary tumour development (which therefore are similar to the primary tumour) will form manifest metastasis. Here, we review comparative analyses of paired samples from primary tumours and disseminated tumour cells or primary tumours and metastases. The data demonstrate a striking disparity, questioning the use of primary tumours as surrogate for the genetics of systemic cancer. In the era of molecular therapies that build upon genetic defects of tumour cells, these data call for a direct diagnostic pathology of systemic cancer.