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Recent scientific advances have provided new insights into why leukemia is such a difficult disease to treat and identified molecular processes activated in leukemia stem cells that may facilitate their drug resistance and quiescent cell-cycle status. Monoclonal antibody therapy may be appropriate for malignant cells, and other approaches involve identification and targeting of specific survival pathways for these biologically distinct cells, which are discussed in this Viewpoint article.
In order to improve prognostic and predictive markers of breast cancer, assessment of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue is important. However, there are problems associated with the use of paraffin-embedded tissue for gene-expression profiling, especially when analyzing older samples. Paiket al. discuss the advantages of using real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for gene-expression level quantification and describe how the Oncotype DX™ RT-PCR assay, among others, has helped to circumvent some of these challenges.
Prostate cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer death in the US, making it an attractive target for chemoprevention. Androgens are known to promote prostate cancer, and compounds that inhibit their production, such as 5α-reductase are promising chemopreventive agents. Other potential strategies to reduce prostate cancer initiation include limitation of inflammation, which is associated with prostate cancer onset. The authors elegantly describe the mechanisms by which COX2 inhibitors, NSAIDs, selenium and vitamin E have been linked to prostate cancer prevention.
Understanding the tumor microenvironment and bone marrow interactions for multiple myeloma is crucial for the development of new therapies aimed at circumventing resistance to conventional therapy. Kumar and Anderson discuss how the development of thalidomide and its immunomodulatory derivatives are a milestone in the treatment of this disease, and how assessment of these agents in model systems has shown great promise in the clinic, thereby paving the way for the development of even more effective therapies.
