Predicting the sites of metastases 英文参考文献.docVIP

Minireview Predicting the sites of metastases Brian Z Ring and Douglas T Ross Address: Applied Genomics Inc., 525 Del Rey Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94085, USA. Correspondence: Brian Z Ring. E-mail: bzring@. Douglas T Ross. E-mail: dtross@ Published: 2 December 2005 Genome Biology 2005, 6:241 (doi:10.1186/gb-2005-6-12-241) The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at /2005/6/12/241 ? 2005 BioMed Central Ltd Abstract Transplantation of human breast cancer cells into immunodeficient mice together with gene- expression microarray studies has recently identified genes implicated in the tissue tropism of breast-cancer metastasis. Such signatures of site-specific metastatic capabilities might allow the targeting of therapy to likely sites of metastasis. Metastases are the primary cause of death of cancer patients, and improving the means of foretelling their development is a major goal of current clinical research. Already, new genomic-based tests predicting the likelihood of tumor recurrence are making the first tentative steps into the clinic [1]. Recent work [2-4], most notably studies of breast cancer by Minn and colleagues [3,4], suggests that it is possible to refine these tests so that the site of distant recurrence can also be predicted. Such an enhancement of cancer diagnos- tics to address the tissue specificity of metastasis would aid the oncologist and patient by allowing additional treatment after surgery to be targeted to the tissue. specificity of circulating tumor cells was exemplified by a study of ovarian cancer [7,8], looking at patients with implanted venous shunts. Ovarian cancer rarely metasta- sizes outside of the peritoneum, and in this study, although the shunts allowed vast numbers of ovarian tumor cells to enter the venous circulation, no increase in distant metasta- sis was observed [7,8]. Clearly