Cancer is the second cause of death in developed countries, and its incidence is steadily on the rose. In general, since 1930, cancer death rates have increased with age for both males and females, and the age-specific occurrence for cancer was similar for both genders. Furthermore, the 5-year mortality trends for the most relevant tumours have only slightly receded (only up to 3.3% for prostate cancers) or even have increased (2.2% for liver cancer) in the last 40 years.
This e-book is based on the assumption of the main postulates of the cancer stem cell (CSC) theory. It will discuss the most recent results that are finally bringing CSCs to the forefront of the study of human cancer, and that are starting to show the implications of CSCs in prognosis, malignancy and disease evolution in humans…