Review

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology 9, 628-638 (August 2008) | doi:10.1038/nrm2455

Cancer as an overhealing wound: an old hypothesis revisited

Matthias Schäfer1 & Sabine Werner1  About the authors

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What is the relationship between the wound-healing process and the development of cancer? Malignant tumours often develop at sites of chronic injury, and tissue injury has an important role in the pathogenesis of malignant disease, with chronic inflammation being the most important risk factor. The development and functional characterization of genetically modified mice that lack or overexpress genes that are involved in repair, combined with gene-expression analysis in wounds and tumours, have highlighted remarkable similarities between wound repair and cancer. However, a few crucial differences were also observed, which could account for the altered metabolism, impaired differentiation capacity and invasive growth of malignant tumours.

Author affiliations

  1. Institute of Cell Biology, ETH Zürich, Schafmattstrasse 18, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland.

Correspondence to: Sabine Werner1 Email: Sabine.werner@cell.biol.ethz.ch

Published online 16 July 2008

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