Further Advances in Understanding the Endocrine Cancer Microenvironment

Inflammation is a physiologic protective process used by the organism in response to tissue damage. It is now known that the inflammation process is also related with the development, maintenance and progression of cancer. Besides the role of inflammation in favoring genome instability, tumor cell growth, and angiogenesis, it has now become clear that the recruitment of specific immune cells within the tumor largely influences the biological behavior of the malignancy. As a result, inflammation is currently regarded as an essential component of several types of human malignancies. However, the relationship between inflammation, tumor microenvironment and biological behavior was by far less studied in tumors of the endocrine glands. Endocrine-related cancers microenvironment (as well as that of other type of cancers) is characterized by a mixture of immune cells (macrophages, mast cells, neutrophils, lymphocytes and other infiltrating cells) and soluble mediators (chemokines, cytokines, growth factors, hormones and small proteins), which are either recruited (cells) or produced (soluble mediators) within and nearby the tumor site. These components mutually interact finally driving crucial aspects of tumor biological behavior. Indeed, the specific composition of the mixture between solid and soluble mediators ultimately contributes in determining tumor progression by positively/negatively influencing major biological features of malignancies. These latter include tumor growth, angiogenesis, metastatic spread. A focus on the role played by the specific components of endocrine tumor microenvironment (solid or soluble or both) would give more information regarding the potential usefulness of a better characterization of the tumor microenvironment for several aspects including: i) marker of biological aggressiveness; ii) diagnostic tool iii) marker for predicting the therapeutic response; iv) patient’s risk stratification; v) development of targeted therapies.

The aim of this special issue, is to collect scientific in vitro or in vivo original articles, review and expert opinion on the more recent advances on the role of solid (immune cells, resident cells, stem cells and cancer cells) and soluble mediators (cytokines, chemokines, hormones and little proteins) in the microenvironment of tumors of the endocrine-related cancers, their specific effects on the progression of specific endocrine cancers, differences among specific genetic and epigenetic variants, and the potential target therapy on specific mediator, receptor or activated pathways.