Cancer stem cell and its niche in malignant progression of oral potentially malignant disorders

Oral cancer, which is the sixth most common cancer, accounts for 300,000 cases worldwide [1]. A large proportion of oral cancer is preceded by the development of oral leukoplakia [2,3], an oral potentially malignant disorder (OPMD). The histologic progression of OPMD from hyperplasia, different grades of dysplasia to carcinoma-in-situ and invasive carcinoma and the associated genomic changes are well studied [4]. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) have been increasingly implicated in oral carcinogenesis and field cancerization [5], and are known to be regulated by stroma and endothelial cells constituting the CSC-niche [6,7].

Source: Oral Oncology - November 11, 2017 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Subin Surendran, Gangotri Siddappa, Amrutha Mohan, Wesley Hicks, Vijayvel Jayaprakash, Christina Mimikos, Mohammed Mahri, Fatima Almarzouki, Kayla Morrell, Ravindra Ravi, Sindhu Govindan, C.N. Sushma, Nisheena Raghavan, Praveen Birur, Jeyaram Ilayaraja, M Source Type: research