Open AccessThe Lethal Phenotype of Cancer: The Molecular Basis of Death Due to Malignancy
Author(s) -
Loberg Robert D.,
Bradley Deborah A.,
Tomlins Scott A.,
Chinnaiyan Arul M.,
Pienta Kenneth J.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
ca: a cancer journal for clinicians
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 62.937
H-Index - 168
eISSN - 1542-4863
pISSN - 0007-9235
DOI - 10.3322/canjclin.57.4.225
Subject(s) - phenotype , malignancy , cancer , metastasis , medicine , biology , cancer research , bioinformatics , pathology , genetics , gene
The last decade has seen an explosion in knowledge of the molecular basis and treatment of cancer. The molecular events that define the lethal phenotype of various cancers—the genetic and cellular alterations that lead to a cancer with a poor or incurable prognosis—are being defined. While these studies describe the cellular events of the lethal phenotype of cancer in detail, how these events result in the common clinical syndromes that kill the majority of cancer patients is not well understood. It is clear that the central step that makes most cancers incurable is metastasis. Understanding the traits that a cancer acquires to successfully grow and metastasize to distant sites gives insight into how tumors produce multiple factors that result in multiple different clinical syndromes that are lethal for the patient.