Since a long time, the fact that gene mutation can cause abnormal growth of cells has been considered as the source of cancer. However, in recent days, some reports indicate that residual stem cells can be the source of cancer. As is known, the source of gene mutation has become the holy grail of medicine; fibroblast growth factor (FGF) is the “Cinderella” in cancer research field.
In fact, because of the complexity of cells, stem cells have been neglected for decades by most pharmaceutical companies, while nowadays an increasing number of researchers begin to unravel the mysteries, making biomedical scientists try to pay more attention to this new star. Generally speaking, stem cells own several different roles in body growth. Many people are familiar with the fact that embryonic stem cell can develop into any cell or organ of the body. Whereas, body organs also include non-embryonic stem cells, which belong to a specific organ. With the advance of modern medical research, residual stem cells might lead to massive cell multiplication and growth in cancer.
Specifically, those carcinoid stem cells are hidden in the cancer organization and can be the basis of primary tumor recurrence under the proliferation of targeted cancer drugs. In addition, stem cells cannot transfer or spread without cancer. Relevant cases of breast prostate cancer have promoted the theory in cancer stem cells, but there is a crucial problem: how can cells send and receive different types of FGF. It has been kept a mystery. Recent studies show that FGF plays an important role in breast and prostate cancer, which probably is the reason that researchers focus on protein study. Maybe it will help cancer treatment in the future. If we could learn how to keep the cells in a dominant state, we might be able to prevent excitation cancer through a special platform, without affecting other systems of the body.
Relevant study aims at prostate cancer and its stem cells, which can also affect other organs of the cancer. Current cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy merely focus on preventing the proliferation of cancer cells. But if we could grasp the principle of residual stem cells, we might cure the cancer in a better way.