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Updated: Apr 11, 2026

Studying Pancreatic Cancer Stem Cell Characteristics for Developing New Treatment Strategies
Published on: June 20, 2015
Chemotherapy targeting cancer stem cells
Haiguang Liu1, Lin Lv2, Kai Yang2
1Department of Surgical Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University Fuxue Road No. 2, Wenzhou, 325000, China ; Department of Pathology, Southern Hospital of Southern Medical University Guangzhou Road No. 1838, Guangzhou, 510515, China.
Abstract:
Conventional chemotherapy is the main treatment for cancer and benefits patients in the form of decreased relapse and metastasis and longer overall survival. However, as the target therapy drugs and delivery systems are not wholly precise, it also results in quite a few side effects, and is less efficient in many cancers due to the spared cancer stem cells, which are considered the reason for chemotherapy resistance, relapse, and metastasis. Conventional chemotherapy limitations and the cancer stem cell hypothesis inspired our search for a novel chemotherapy targeting cancer stem cells. In this review, we summarize cancer stem cell enrichment methods, the search for new efficient drugs, and the delivery of drugs targeting cancer stem cells. We also discuss cancer stem cell hierarchy complexity and the corresponding combination therapy for both cancer stem and non-stem cells. Learning from cancer stem cells may reveal novel strategies for chemotherapy in the future.
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