The Achilles Heel of Cervical Cancer: An Overlooked Target?

Abstract

Copyright: © 2012 Duenas-Gonzalez A. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Cervical cancer is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer worldwide and the fourth leading cause of cancer death in females, accounting for 9% (529,800) of total new cancer cases and 8% (275,100) of total cancer deaths among females in 2008. This cancer mainly affects socially disadvantaged women; hence, it is much more common in developing countries, where 83% of cases occur [1]. Despite these figures, there is a shortage of novel therapeutical agents for invasive cervical cancer in late stages of development.