title: Twenty years after: the beautiful hypothesis and the ugly facts.
abstract: The limited clinical benefits from current antiangiogenic therapy for cancer patients have triggered some critical thoughts and insightful investigations aiming to further elucidate the relationship between vessels and cancer. Tumors need blood perfusion but there are mounting evidences that angiogenesis alone does not explain it in all the neoplasms. In this editorial, for a special issue on tumor and vessels published in the Chinese Journal of Cancer, we briefly introduce the history of the evidences that solid tumors can sometimes obtain blood perfusion by alternative approaches other than sprouting angiogenesis, i.e., vessel co-option and vasculogenic mimicry. This editorial provides also the links to several most recently published discoveries and hypotheses on tumor interaction with blood vessels.
authors.affiliation: Nuffield Division of Clinical Laboratory Science, Radcliffe Department of Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK. Francesco.pezzella@ndcls.ox.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Pezzella
authors.affiliation: Nuffield Division of Clinical Laboratory Science, Radcliffe Department of Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK. kevin.gatter@ndcls.ox.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Gatter
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, 510060, Guangdong, People's Republic of China. qianchn@sysucc.org.cn.
authors.forename: Chao-Nan
authors.initials: CN
authors.lastname: Qian
mesh_terms: D020533:Angiogenesis Inhibitors / Q000627:therapeutic use; D019008:Drug Resistance, Neoplasm; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000639:trends*
chemical_list: D020533:Angiogenesis Inhibitors