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Review
. 2014 Aug;90(8):615-21.
doi: 10.3109/09553002.2014.892227. Epub 2014 Mar 7.

Cancer stem cells and radioresistance

Kiera Rycaj  1 , Dean G Tang
Affiliations
Review

Cancer stem cells and radioresistance

Kiera Rycaj et al. Int J Radiat Biol. 2014 Aug.

Abstract

Purpose: Radiation therapy has made significant contributions to cancer treatment. However, despite continuous improvements, tumor recurrence and therapy resistance still occur in a high proportion of patients. One underlying reason for this radioresistance might be attributable to the presence of cancer stem cells (CSC). The purpose of this review is to discuss CSC-specific mechanisms that confer radiation resistance.

Conclusions: We focus our discussions on breast cancer and glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) and conclude that both CSC-intrinsic and CSC-extrinsic factors as well as adaptive responses in CSC caused by irradiation and microenvironmental changes all make contributions to CSC-mediated radioresistance. Our discussions emphasize CSC as novel therapeutic targets in order to potentiate radiotherapy efficacy.

Keywords: Cancer stem cells; hypoxia; microenvironment; plasticity; radiation therapy; radioresistance; radiosensitivity.

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Conflict of interest statement

DECLARATION OF INTEREST

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

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