找到癌症的特點有助於治療

What we think of as cancer is not really one disease but a large number of related diseases. And while each is different, they share certain characteristics. These "Hallmarks of Cancer" were identified in an influential publication a decade ago, and now the authors are back with an update.

我們平時所說的癌症，其實並不是一種疾病，而是多種相關的疾病。雖然各不相同，但它們有某些共同的痛惜，這就是所謂的“癌症的特徵”。早在10年前，一份很有影響的出版物就介紹了這些特徵。當年那些作者們現在又做了一些新的補充。

Writing in the journal Cell in 2000, Doughas Hanahan and Robert A. Weinberg identified six cellular traits as "Hallmarks of Cancer." They included features such as sustained growth of blood vessels to feed the growing cancer and what the authors called "self-sufficiency in growth signals."

2000年，道格拉斯·哈納翰和羅伯特·溫伯格在《細胞學》雜誌上發表專文，提出了6種細胞特性爲“癌症特徵”，其中包括供養癌細胞的血管持續生長，以及他們稱作“自足的生長信號”。

"Normal cells in our tissues will not start growing unless they're stimulated to do so by getting signals from their neighbors," Weinberg explained in a telephone interview.

溫伯格說：“我們身體組織裏的正常細胞，除非有臨近細胞發出生長信號，否則不會開始成長。”

"However, cancer cells become independent of these signals from their neighbors, and as a consequence they stimulate their own growth, making them independent and allowing them to drive their own proliferation relentlessly."

“而癌細胞不必依靠臨近細胞發出的生長信號。因此，它們自行刺激自己的生長，使它們可以漫無限制地繁殖。”

Weinberg, who is affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, both in Cambridge, Massachusetts, says the value of identifying these hallmarks of cancer is that they can suggest new ways of fighting cancer that might be more effective than current therapies.

溫伯格與麻省理工學院以及懷特黑德生物醫學研究所都有工作關係。他指出，找出癌症這些特徵的好處在於，可以由此研究出新的、比現行治療手段更有效的抗癌方法。

"In other words, there may be two or three molecules inside cancer cells that are functioning abnormally in order to confer on the cancer cell unrelenting growth. And if we hit this hallmark vulnerability, then we believe we may be able to get a long-term clinical response," he said.

溫伯格說：“換句話說，癌細胞裏面可能有兩、三個功能異常的分子，使癌細胞得以無限生長。如果能抓住這種特徵的弱點，相信我們就能夠找到一種長期的治療手段。”

In the decade since the original Hallmarks article was published, there has been a lot of cancer research. The newly-published version of the Hallmarks paper reflects a better understanding of the original six hallmarks, plus two new ones.

自從第一篇有關癌症特徵的報告發表後，10年來，對癌症有過大量的研究。最近發表的一篇癌症特徵研究報告，反映出對最初6種特徵更深入的瞭解，另外，還加上了兩種新的特徵。

"One of them is the need for a tumor, during its development, to evade elimination by the immune system. Another is the possibility that tumor cells have a very unusual metabolism, which sets them apart from normal cells," Weinberg said.

溫伯格說：“其一是，腫瘤在生長期間需要躲避被免疫系統消滅。其二是，腫瘤細胞可能具有非常特殊的代謝，使它們和正常細胞不同。”

And that might suggest another vulnerability that could be targeted by cancer researchers.

這可以意味着研究人員可以採取針對性措施的癌細胞另外一個弱點。

The original "Hallmarks of Cancer" article has been cited by other researchers more often than any other paper published by the journal Cell, which also published the update. Despite that benchmark for influence in the scientific community, Robert Weinberg admits that his analysis of cancer's hallmarks has not yet had a major impact in actually producing new cancer treatments.

在《細胞學》雜誌上發表的專文中，最初那篇有關癌症特徵的文章被引用得最多。但溫伯格說，不論那篇文章在科學界產生了什麼影響，但他對癌症特徵的分析迄今還沒有對研發新的癌症治療手段發揮重大的作用。