The REAL REASONS Therapies Matter in Cancer Treatment

And what it turns out is, remember I mentioned that the cancer stem cells might actually be made stronger by, you know, chemotherapy radiation, whereas it'll kill the daughter cells, the weaker cells of the cancer. Well, the tumor microenvironment is the place where the cancer stem cells can go and hide out, and then they wait for an opportunity. And the tumor microenvironment has all these inputs going on that can then have the cancer stem cells either recruit normal cells in and create more cancer, or have the cancer stem cells create more daughter cells and push the cancer out again. So think therapies that can affect the tumor microenvironment become critically important in all phases of whether it's primary cancer treatment or secondary prevention, when we're in remission or stable disease or whatever.