Current Cancer Therapy Reviews - Volume 5, Issue 3, 2009

Casein Kinase I η (CKIη) and Casein Kinase I δ (CKIδ) are Serine/Threonine Kinases that have been implicated in several human conditions and have been receiving increasing attention as potential therapeutic targets. Recent findings in gastrointestinal cancers strengthen this notion and suggest that they may also play important roles in both colon cancer and pancreatic cancer, which are among the most common and deadly ca Read More

The second law of thermodynamics does not allow us to make entropy barriers, but it does not exclude changing the direction of some particular components of entropy flow from a tumour to the normal tissues. The reversal of entropy flow in co-existing normal and tumour tissues may halt tumour development due to reversed signal transmission in the tumour-host entity. This thermodynamic approach may help in the desig Read More

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a highly invasive and metastatic tumor, which is universally associated with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). Clinically, radiotherapy, but not surgery, is usually performed for the treatment of NPC because of the deep and complex location of the tumor. Previous randomized trials did not demonstrate that either neoadjuvant or adjuvant chemotherapy offered survival advantages over radiotherap Read More

Gastric cancer is the fourth most common cancer and the second most common cause of cancer deaths worldwide. The 90% of gastric cancers are adenocarcinomas and two main types can be distinguished: diffuse and intestinal. The process preceding the diffuse-type carcinomas is not well known whereas the precursor stages of the intestinal-type are histologically well identified. The colonization of the gastric mucosa by He Read More

Ovarian carcinoma is the leading cause of gynecological cancer-related mortality. Cytoreductive surgery followed by combination chemotherapy including paclitaxel and a platinum compound usually results in complete remission in approximately 70% of patients. Despite this, the majority of patients will eventually relapse and die. There is, therefore, a crucial need to develop new therapeutic agents and better strategies to i Read More

In 1971, J. Folkman started his crusade on the therapeutic targeting of tumor angiogenesis [1]. This strategy gained an increasing number of sustainers showing promising, if not sensational results in animal models. Numerous potential targets were identified on the endothelial cell, causing the sensation to have no more secrets to disclose. Times were mature for an optimistic clinical transfer. This transfer immediat Read More

Elimination of solid tumors refractory to the standard approaches is a significant challenge. The hypothesis that cancer stem cells (CSC) are responsible for the resistance to treatment, require novel therapies for cancer. Although recent studies determined phenotypes associated with CSC in distinct tumors, therapeutics lags behind. It is possible that the originally described CSC contain cells in different stages of differe Read More

The 11q23 abnormalities are frequent cytogenetic abnormalities found in some adult and pediatric cases of primary acute leukemia (AL), and also in the majority of patients with secondary AL after previous treatment with DNA topoisomerase II inhibitors. According to the WHO classification, AL with 11q23 abnormalities involving the Mixed- Lineage-Leukemia (MLL) gene composes one category of recurring genetic abnormalities. Read More