Cancer: More of polygenic disease and less of multiple mutations? A quantitative viewpoint.

• The focus of cancer research is on cancer-specific mutations, with most clinical trials involving targeted drugs. Huge numbers of DNA lesions and tumor resistance events, in each of the >10(13) cells of a human individual, form a striking contrast to the low, and also very narrow, cancer incidence window (10(-1)-10(0)). A detailed consideration of these quantitative observations seems to question the present paradigm, while suggesting that a systemic regulatory network mechanism is a stronger determinant for overt cancer disease, as compared with cancer-specific gene products. If we shall ever achieve major improvements in survival, we must gain understanding of this systemic network, rather than targeting therapy to a limited set of molecules or mutations. This may give us new opportunities for development of highly potent therapeutic tools. Cancer 2010. © 2010 American Cancer Society.

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MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Klinisk medicin -- Cancer och onkologi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Clinical Medicine -- Cancer and Oncology (hsv//eng)

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