Cancer Stem Cells at the NYAS
A little history of the cancer stem cell theory, and evidence thereof, from the New York Academy of Sciences: "Virtually all cancers are believed to arise from a single faulty cell. But the notion that any cell can be mutated to give rise to new tumors has been replaced by the idea that only a subset of cells, those with self-renewing properties, has the paradoxical effect of conferring immortality to the tumor at the same time they threaten the life of their host organism. ... Before the cancer stem cell theory took hold it was thought that any tumor cell remaining in the body after surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy had the potential to resurrect cancer in its most aggressive form. This model led to treatments, not uniformly successful, that targeted the destruction of every cancer cell regardless of its function. Recently, [scientists] have learned that only a small subset of tumor cells can re-initiate full-blown disease. The implication of the cancer stem cell model is that targeting cancer stem cells, rather than every aberrant cell in the body, might bring about long-term remissions or even cures, and turn many currently deadly cancers into truly manageable diseases."
Link: http://www.nyas.org/ebriefreps/main.asp?intEBriefID=657