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This book reviews different aspects of the cancer microenvironment, and its regulation and importance for tumor progression. Methodological advancements and practical applications, in terms of how biomarkers are studied and increasingly included in clinical trials and therapy protocols, are described and discussed. Biomarkers of the Tumor Microenvironment is an educational resource for students and members of the cancer research community as a whole, especially for those using morphology analysis techniques and models focusing on the cross-talk between different cell types in tumors. The textbook provides a comprehensive overview of the microenvironment in various contexts from the perspectives of experienced and accomplished cancer researchers and clinicians.

This book would like to present the latest findings on different aspects of tumor matrix formation in connection with the tumor progression and metastasis and on alterations in the cellular components of tumor stroma during tumor demarcation and invasion.

It is widely recognized that the host response to tumor munotherapy of experimental metastases in animal systems progression is an important determinant in cancer growth which are beginning to be developed for ultimate clinical and progression. Indeed, as indicated in Volume I of this trials of human cancer metastasis. series, the process of cancer growth and progression, leading This volume explores a variety of host properties that to tumor invasion and metastasis, is dependent upon the influence tumor development including dormancy, regress­ complex, dynamic interactions between the properties of the ion, and recurrence. In addition, current knowledge of the tumor as well as the properties of the host. While Volume III response of the central nervous system to cancer, cardiac of this series reviews in great detail the influence of tumor and pulmonary complications, dermatologic effects and development on the host, this volume emphasizes the in­ hematologic complications of malignancies is presented. fluence of the host on tumor development. These host re­ The endocrine and metabolic function of cancer patients, as sponses include host anti-tumor immune reactivity, tumor well as the production of hormones by tumors is also review­ dormancy, cachexia, multiple endocrine and paraneoplastic ed.

Recent experimental evidence has made it increasingly clear In particular, this volume reviews the discrete steps involved that the properties of invasive, malignant cells during tumor in metastatic invasion: the interaction of invasive tumor cells development substantially impact on the host. This is under­ with extracellular matrices, the basement membrane, attach­ scored by a variety of biochemical properties of tumor cells ment to extracellular matrices, local proteolytic degradation during their differentiation and metastatic dissemination. of matrices, and the locomotion of invasive tumor cells These properties can be analyzed at different stages of tumor through such areas of localized degradation. The critical growth and progression and this volume explores the role of the cell surface in secondary tumor formation is characteristics of primary tumors as well as the shared reviewed as are important advances in the molecular biology characteristics of both primary and secondary tumors. of metastasis initiation and maintenance. Recent advances The primary tumor comes into existence following in the role of DNA methylation in the generation of tumor preneoplastic biochemical and cellular events that ultimate­ cell heterogeneity and tumor progression are also critically ly result in malignant transformation. Various aspects of summarized. Chapters in this volume also review molecular metabolism, predetermined by nutritional status, often play aspects of metastatic progression, and the use of the tech­ a basic role. Obesity, for example, is cancer-promoting. Cell nologies of DNA transfection and somatic cell fusion in the surface carbohydrates, cytoskeletal proteins, glycoproteins, exploration of molecular aspects of metastatic progression.