title: Cancer as a changed tissue's way of life (when to treat, when to watch and when to think).
abstract: The profound scientific and commercial success of molecular biology, the progress of 'cancer gene' investigation technologies, together, pushed forward the postulate that genes explain 'everything'. Yet, during the last few years the microenvironments of solid tumors have emerged as key modulators of initiation, progression and metastasis and as essential to the therapeutic response. In the present review, we provide a synthetic examination of the main traits of cells embedded into the cancer stroma and emphasize several evidences that all components of the tumor tissue cooperate in space and time. Then we turn to discuss the epitheliocentric somatic mutational view and other new paradigms assuming that disturbed tissue interactions among cell populations are critical to cancer causation, growth and spread.
authors.affiliation: Scientific Directorate, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale Tumori, 20133 Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: Romano
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Demicheli
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA.
authors.forename: Dinah Faith T
authors.initials: DF
authors.lastname: Quiton
authors.affiliation: Medical Statistics & Biometry, Università di Milano, 20133 Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fornili
authors.affiliation: School of Medicine, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29209, USA.
authors.forename: William Jm
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Hrushesky
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D042783:Endothelial Cells / Q000378:metabolism; D005347:Fibroblasts / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D008264:Macrophages / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000209:etiology* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology* / Q000628:therapy; D009504:Neutrophils / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D013997:Time Factors; D059016:Tumor Microenvironment
keywords: Tissue Regulatory Network; cancer attractor; cancer paradigms; somatic mutation theory; tumor–stroma interactions