Solid tumours need a blood supply, and a large body of evidence has previously suggested that they can grow only if they induce the development of new blood vessels, a process known as tumour angiogenesis. On the basis of this hypothesis, it was proposed that anti-angiogenic drugs should be able to suppress the growth of all solid tumours. However, clinical experience with anti-angiogenic agents has shown that this is not always the case. Reports of tumours growing without the formation of new vessels can be found in the literature dating back to the 1800s, yet no formal recognition, description and demonstration of their special biological status was made until recently. In 1996, we formally recognized and described non-angiogenic tumours in lungs where the only blood vessels present were those originating from normal lung tissue. This is far from an isolated scenario, as non-angiogenic tumour growth has now been observed in tumours of many different organs in both humans and preclinical animal models. In this Opinion article, we summarize how these tumours were discovered and discuss what we know so far about their biology and the potential implications of this knowledge for cancer treatment.

实体瘤需要血液供应，大量证据以前表明，实体瘤只有在诱导新血管发育时才能生长，这一过程称为肿瘤血管生成。基于该假设，提出抗血管生成药物应能够抑制所有实体瘤的生长。然而，抗血管生成剂的临床经验表明并非总是如此。早在1800年代的文献中就发现了肿瘤在不形成新血管的情况下生长的报道，但直到最近才对其正式的生物学状态进行正式的承认，描述和证明。1996年，我们正式认识并描述了肺部非血管生成性肿瘤，其中仅有的血管是源自正常肺组织的那些血管。这远非孤立的情况，因为在人类和临床前动物模型的许多不同器官的肿瘤中现已观察到非血管生成性肿瘤的生长。在这篇观点文章中，我们总结了这些肿瘤是如何发现的，并讨论了迄今为止我们对它们的生物学知识以及该知识对癌症治疗的潜在影响。