Resistance to chemotherapy and cancer relapse are major clinical challenges attributed to a sub population of cancer stem cells (CSCs). The concept of CSCs has been the subject of intense research by the oncology community since evidence for their existence was first published over twenty years ago. Emerging data indicates that they are also able to evade novel therapies such as targeted agents, immunotherapies and anti-angiogenics. The inability to appropriately identify and isolate CSCs is a major hindrance to the field and novel technologies are now being utilized. Agents that target CSC-associated cell surface receptors and signaling pathways have generated promising pre-clinical results and are now entering clinical trial. Here we discuss and evaluate current therapeutic strategies to target CSCs.

对化学疗法和癌症复发的抵抗是归因于癌症干细胞 (CSC) 亚群的主要临床挑战。自 20 多年前首次发表 CSC 存在的证据以来，CSC 的概念一直是肿瘤学界深入研究的主题。新出现的数据表明，它们还能够逃避新疗法，例如靶向药物、免疫疗法和抗血管生成药物。无法正确识别和分离 CSC 是该领域的主要障碍，目前正在使用新技术。靶向 CSC 相关细胞表面受体和信号通路的药物已经产生了有希望的临床前结果，目前正在进入临床试验阶段。在这里，我们讨论和评估当前针对 CSC 的治疗策略。