Effectiveness of Hyperthermia on Cancer Stem Cells

Abstract

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) or tumor-initiating cells (TICs) have been identified in a variety of cancers and are defined as a small population of cancer cells that have stem cell-like phenotypes. CSCs are resistant to current chemotherapy and radiotherapy and have high ability of tumorigenesis. It is likely that CSCs contribute to cancer metastases and tumor recurrence, which cause a poor prognosis. Thus, targeting strategy of CSCs is extremely important for advancement of cancer therapies. However, CSC itself is not well understood. This review refers to key points to be noticed in CSC research and considers effectiveness of hyperthermia for CSC-targeting. It has been reported that heating has an inhibitory influence on some extraand intra-cellular factors that are related to the survival of CSCs. In this review, the potentiality of hyperthermia for CSC-targeted cancer therapy is discussed with relation to those survival factors.