On CSC and therapeutic sensitivity studies

If cancer stem cells are resistant to current therapies, what’s next? by Paola Marcato‌, Cheryl A Dean‌, Carman A Giacomantonio‌ and Patrick WK Lee‌, Future Oncol 2009(Aug); 5(6): 747-50. [Twitter entry][FriendFeed entry][PubMed Citation]. Excerpts from the final portion of this Editorial:

Thus far, oncolytic viruses as a class of novel cancer therapeutics appear to kill CSCs with the same efficiency as non-CSCs [references]. Therefore, the characteristics that make CSCs resistant to current therapies do not limit the ability of the viral-based therapies to infect and kill these cells. Of further interest is the possibility of engineering oncolytic viruses to specifically kill tumor cells that express CSC markers.

We conclude that with increasing evidence that CSCs are potent initiators of cancer and have an intrinsic resistance to current therapies, scientists and clinicians will need to rethink traditional end points, such as tumor regression, as the major indicator of the efficacy of anticancer therapies, new and old.