[ Special series on Tumor angiogenesis ]

doi: 10.1186/s40880-016-0087-1

Twenty years after: the beautiful hypothesis and the ugly facts

Francesco Pezzella, Kevin Gatter and Chao-Nan Qian

Nuffield Division of Clinical Laboratory Science, Radcliffe Department of Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford

[Abstract] The limited clinical benefits from current antiangiogenic therapy for cancer patients have triggered some critical thoughts and insightful investigations aiming to further elucidate the relationship between vessels and cancer. Tumors need blood perfusion but there are mounting evidences that angiogenesis alone does not explain it in all the neoplasms. In this editorial, for a special issue on tumor and vessels published in the Chinese Journal of Cancer, we briefly introduce the history of the evidences that solid tumors can sometimes obtain blood perfusion by alternative approaches other than sprouting angiogenesis, i.e., vessel co-option and vasculogenic mimicry. This editorial provides also the links to several most recently published discoveries and hypotheses on tumor interaction with blood vessels.

Chinese Journal of Cancer 2016, Volume: 35, Issue 2

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Francesco Pezzella, Kevin Gatter and Chao-Nan Qian. Twenty years after: the beautiful hypothesis and the ugly facts. Chin J Cancer. 2016, 35:22. doi:10.1186/s40880-016-0087-1


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