Journal of Cancer Science and Research
Open Access

Mechanisms Of Cancer

Understanding the fundamentals of how cancer cells form and proliferate has been crucial to cancer treatment and prevention. New areas of basic research will lead to better outcomes for patients.

Decades of discovery have demonstrated that a deep understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of cancer—how it forms, why it persists and what causes it to spread through the body—leads to better outcomes for patients. New areas of basic cancer research, including how each cell differs from others within a tumor, how the environment in which a tumor grows impacts its progress and how well an individual’s immune system mounts a defense, will yield improved outcomes for patients.

Now, cancer researchers are using new tools, technologies and ways of thinking to develop an even more sophisticated understanding of cancer mechanisms. They are exploring subtle variations that impact cancer cells’ behaviors—not just between different patients or cancer types but even among the different cells that make up an individual tumor. At the same time, researchers are broadening their focus, looking beyond tumors to learn how factors elsewhere in the body impact a patient’s disease.

Until now, studies of cancer biology have largely focused on what makes tumor cells different from healthy cells. But it has become clear that not all tumor cells—even within a single tumor—are the same. Only a small fraction of a tumor’s cells may have the capacity to divide and sustain the tumor’s growth.