Blood vessels in tumors are formed through a variety of different mechanisms, each generating vessels with peculiar structural, molecular, and functional properties. This heterogeneity has a major impact on tumor response or resistance to antineoplas...
Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most lethal type of primary brain cancer. Standard care using chemo- and radio-therapy modestly increases the overall survival of patients; however, recurrence is inevitable, due to treatment resistance and lack of response...
Mitochondrial stress has emerged as a key regulator of tumor–immune interactions, extending beyond its classical bioenergetic role to coordinate metabolic adaptation and immune regulation. Rather than merely accompanying tumor progression, mito...
BRAF is one of the most frequently mutated oncogenes, with an overall frequency of about 50%. Targeting BRAF and its effector mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase 1/2 (MEK1/2) is now a key therapeutic strategy for BRAF-mutant tumors, and therapies...
Tumorigenesis is a complex and dynamic process involving cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix (ECM) interactions that allow tumor cell growth, drug resistance and metastasis. This review provides an updated summary of the role played by the tumor...
Although cisplatin has been a pivotal chemotherapy drug in treating patients with various types of cancer for decades, drug resistance has been a major clinical impediment. In general, cisplatin exerts cytotoxic effects in tumor cells mainly through...
Pancreatic cancer has a notoriously poor prognosis, exhibits persistent drug resistance, and lacks a cure. Unique features of the pancreatic tumor microenvironment exacerbate tumorigenesis, metastasis, and therapy resistance. Recent studies emphasize...
Malignant gliomas are highly lethal because of their resistance to conventional treatments. Recent evidence suggests that a minor subpopulation of cells with stem cell properties reside within these tumors. These tumor stem cells are more resistant t...
Drug resistance is still an obstacle in cancer therapy, leading to the failure of tumor treatment. The emergence of tumor drug resistance has always been a main concern of oncologists. Therefore, overcoming tumor drug resistance and looking for new s...
The concept of post-therapy metastatic spread, cancer repopulation and acquired tumor cell resistance (M-CRAC) rationalizes tumor progression because of tumor cell heterogeneity arising from post-therapy genetic damage and subsequent tissue repair me...
Vascularized tumor organoid and tumor-on-chip models are increasingly used to examine treatment response, yet a weak therapeutic effect does not by itself identify the failed transport or biological step. Reduced efficacy may result from inadequate d...
Disease relapse caused by drug resistance still represents a major clinical hurdle in cancer treatments. Tumor cells may take advantage of different intracellular and genetic systems attenuating the drug effects. Resistant cells or minimal residual d...
Nanodrug delivery systems have revolutionized tumor therapy like never before. By overcoming the complexity of the tumor microenvironment (TME) and bypassing drug resistance mechanisms, nanotechnology has shown great potential to improve drug efficac...
During the cell cycle, DNA suffers several lesions that need to be repaired prior to entry into mitosis to preserve genome integrity in daughter cells. Toward this aim, cells have developed complex enzymatic machinery, the so-called DNA damage respon...
Background/Objectives: This review discusses the resistance mechanisms in the tumor microenvironment (TME) of malignant melanoma that disrupt the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). In this review, we focus on the roles of immune cells,...
Cancer progression and therapeutic resistance are shaped by reciprocal dynamic interactions between malignant cells and the metabolically altered tumor microenvironment (TME). Tumor-associated hypoxia, glucose and amino acid competition, extracellula...
Recently, immunotherapy has garnered increasing importance in cancer therapy, leading to substantial improvements in patient care and survival. By blocking the immune checkpoints—protein regulators of the immune system—immunotherapy prevents immune t...
Early assessment of tumor treatment response and elucidation of resistance mechanisms are critical for optimizing therapeutic strategies and improving patient outcomes. Functional and metabolic imaging technologies, particularly positron emission tom...
Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) are the most common mesenchymal tumors of the gastrointestinal tract, primarily driven by activating mutations in KIT (CD117) and platelet-derived growth factor receptor alpha (PDGFRA). The introduction of tyro...
Antitumor therapies have made great strides in recent decades. Chemotherapy, aggressive and unable to discriminate cancer from healthy cells, has given way to personalized treatments that, recognizing and blocking specific molecular targets, have pav...
Quiescent cancer cells (QCCs) are nonproliferating cells arrested in the G0 phase, characterized by ki67low and p27high. QCCs avoid most chemotherapies, and some treatments could further lead to a higher proportion of QCCs in tumors. QCCs are also as...
Cancer immunotherapy has become a powerful clinical strategy for cancer management, while its efficacy is frequently limited by primary and acquired resistance. The tumor microenvironment (TME) plays a pivotal role in mediating such resistance throug...
The rapid and uncontrolled proliferation of tumors limits the availability of oxygen and nutrients supplied from the tumor vasculature, thus exposing them to low oxygen environments. Thus, diminished oxygen availability, or hypoxia, is the most commo...
Malignant tumors are life-threatening, and chemotherapy is one of the common treatment methods. However, there are often many factors that contribute to the failure of chemotherapy. The multidrug resistance of cancer cells during chemotherapy has bee...
As far back as 3000 years ago, the immune system was observed to play a role in mediating tumor regression. Since then, many strategies have been developed to leverage the anti-tumor immune response. However, while many patients respond to ICIs up fr...
Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) remains the most aggressive and therapeutically intractable primary brain tumor, with many patients experiencing rapid relapse despite maximal surgical resection followed by standard chemoradiation. This persistent failu...
HER2-low breast cancer, also known as IHC 1+ or IHC 2+ without ERBB2 amplification, is a new concept in the biology of breast cancer that has removed the binary classification of HER2-positive or HER2-negative breast cancer. The recent introduction o...
Dormant cancer cells, also referred to as quiescent, slowly cycling or “nonproliferative” cells, are believed to contribute to tumor recurrence and present a therapeutic problem because they are nonresponsive to current therapies that target prolifer...
Antiestrogenic adjuvant treatments are first-line therapies in patients with breast cancer positive for estrogen receptor (ER+). Improvement of their treatment strategies is needed because most patients eventually acquire endocrine resistance and man...
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common cancers worldwide, with high morbidity and mortality rates. A number of factors including modulation of the tumor microenvironment, high metastatic capability, and resistance to treatment have been as...
Malignant melanoma is a highly metastatic type of cancer, which arises frequently from transformed pigment cells and melanocytes as a result of long-term UV radiation exposure. In recent years, the incidence of newly diagnosed melanoma patients reach...
Cancer immunotherapy has shown impressive anti-tumor activity in patients with advanced and early-stage malignant tumors, thus improving long-term survival. However, current cancer immunotherapy is limited by barriers such as low tumor specificity, p...
UDP-glucuronosyltransferases (UGTs) are a key family of phase II metabolic enzymes in humans that play a central role in maintenance of metabolic homeostasis and drug disposition by catalyzing glucuronidation of endogenous and exogenous substances. U...
Cancer is no longer considered as an isolated event. Rather, it occurs because of a complex biological drive orchestrating different cell types, growth factors, cytokines, and signaling pathways within the tumor microenvironment (TME). Cancer-associa...
The development of patient-derived tumor organoids (TOs) from an epithelial ovarian cancer tumor obtained at the time of primary or interval debulking surgery has the potential to play an important role in precision medicine. Here, we utilized TOs to...
The tumor microenvironment (TME) acts as a major barrier to effective drug delivery and contributes to drug resistance in solid tumors. Hypoxia, acidosis, and elevated interstitial fluid pressure limit drug penetration, while cancer-associated fibrob...
Breast cancer (BRCA) is a highly heterogeneous systemic disease. It is ranked first globally in the incidence of new cancer cases and has emerged as the primary cause of cancer-related death among females. Among the distinct subtypes of BRCA, triple-...
Cancer cell plasticity, defined as the ability of tumor cells to reversibly adopt distinct functional states, plays a central role in tumor heterogeneity, therapy resistance, and disease relapse. This process enables cells to enter stem-like, dormant...
Glioblastoma (GBM) is an exceedingly aggressive primary brain tumor defined by rapid growth, extensive infiltration, and resistance to standard therapies. A central factor driving these malignancies is the subpopulation of glioblastoma stem cells (GS...
Cellular senescence has been increasingly recognized as a hallmark of cancer, reflecting its association with aging and inflammation, its role as a response to deregulated proliferation and oncogenic stress, and its induction by cancer therapies. Whi...
The development of drug resistance in malignant tumors leads to disease progression, creating a bottleneck in treatment. Bevacizumab is widely used clinically, and acts by inhibiting angiogenesis to “starve” tumors. Continuous treatment c...
Targeted therapies and chemoimmunotherapy have transformed outcomes for non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), yet relapse remains common. Resistance is increasingly recognized to include an early, largely reversible phase in which a minor subpopu...
Recent developments in single-cell multi-omics technologies have provided the ability to identify diverse cell types and decipher key components of the tumor microenvironment (TME), leading to important advancements toward a much deeper understanding...
Paclitaxel (PTX) remains a major component of treatment for solid tumors, but its clinical performance is limited by poor aqueous solubility, solvent-associated toxicity, heterogeneous tumor exposure, and multifactorial drug resistance. This narrativ...
Lung cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. About 10–30% of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) harbor mutations of the EGFR gene. The Tumor Microenvironment (TME) of patients with NSCLC harboring EGFR mutati...
Globally, breast cancer (BC) is the leading cause of cancer-related death for women. BC is characterized by heterogeneity, aggressive behavior, and high metastatic potential. Chemotherapy, administered as monotherapy or adjuvant therapy, remains a co...
Cancer stem cells (CSCs) play a central role in tumor progression, recurrence, and resistance to conventional therapies, making them a critical focus in oncology research. This review provides a comprehensive analysis of CSC biology, emphasizing thei...
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common primary liver malignancy and a leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide. Despite advances in targeted therapies and immunotherapies, clinical outcomes remain poor owing to profound molecula...
Primary liver cancer is the sixth most common cancer and the third most common cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a major histologic type with a poor prognosis owing to the difficulty in early detection, the c...
Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is a highly malignant tumor originating from the epithelium of the bile ducts. It has an insidious onset, is difficult to diagnose in its early stages, has a low rate of curative resection, and carries an extremely poor progn...
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