Cancer stem cells in laryngeal cancer: what we know

Abstract

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are a group of cells with eternal life or infinite self-renewal ability, which have high migrating, infiltrative, and metastatic abilities. Though CSCs only account for a small proportion in tumors, the high resistance to traditional therapy exempts them from therapy killing and thus they can reconstruct tumors. Previous studies found that heterogeneity of cancer cells extensively exists in head and neck cancers. Our current knowledge, about CSCs in the laryngeal cancer (LC), largely depends on head and neck studies. Given the lack of systematic data about CSCs in LC, we propose a review of the literature, reporting the evidences of CSCs in tumorigenesis of LC, with the purpose to provide new insights into the prevention and/or treatment of laryngeal carcinoma.

Keywords: Cancer stem cells; Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition; Laryngeal carcinoma; Side population; Stemness markers.