Invasion Tumor proliferation

Tumor size and the presence and number of involved axillary lymph nodes are primary factors in assessing the risk for breast cancer recurrence and subsequent metastatic disease. Other disease characteristics that provide prognostic information include histologic subtype, nuclear or histologic grade, lymphatic and vascular invasion, and proliferation indices. 

Pyrimidine nucleosides labelled with radiohalogens have been studied for diagnostic335 and therapeutic336 applications in oncology. They may serve as indicators of tissue proliferation suitable for non-invasive tumor localization. 311 and 312 have been radiolabelled for evaluation as diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals337. 

Festuccia, C, V Dolo, F Guerra et al. 1998. Plasminogen activator system modulated invasive capacity and proliferation in prostatic tumor cells. Clin Exp Metastasis 16 513-528. 

We hypothesize that different patterns of nuclear p-catenin occur, depending on the localization of neoplastic cells in the tumor and correlating with variations in the differentiation state of malignant hepatocyte subpopulations. At the inner area of the cancerous tissue, neoplastic hepatocytes might have low or are even devoid of nuclear p-catenin and exhibit proliferation. In contrast, malignant hepatocytes that have undergone EMT at the invasive front might... 

Fig. 1. Microenvironmental factors and the invasive process. The primary tumor is a heterogeneous mix of cell populations, further diversified by gradients of blood-borne nutrients, oxygen, and drugs. Hypoxia contributes to treatment resistance, upregulates pro-angiogenic and pro-invasive molecules, and helps to maintain cancer stem-like cell populations. Tumor cells may undergo epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), enter blood vessels, and disseminate to distant sites where they extravasate, invade, and colonize the tissues. Once established, the cells may undergo the reverse program (mesen-chymal-to-epithelial transition, MET) and proliferate to form metastases, the major reason for treatment failure.

One of the most exciting areas of combined modality therapy is the specific molecular targeted therapy in combination with radiation. Over the past decade there has been a quantum increase in the understanding of molecular mechanisms that underlie the process of tumor development, proliferation, invasion, and metastasis. 

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