We performed a meta-analysis of CD133-related clinical data to investigate the role of cancer stem cells (CSCs) in the clinical outcomes of colorectal cancer (CRC) patients, analyzing the effectiveness of various therapeutic strategies and examining the validity of the CSC hypothesis. For 28 studies (4546 patients), the relative risk (RR) to survival outcomes associated with CD133+ CRCs were calculated using STATA 12.0 software. Pooled results showed that CD133High patients had poor 5-year overall survival (RR 0.713, 95% CI 0·616–0·826) and 5-year disease free survival (RR 0·707, 95% CI 0·602–0·831). Both associations were consistently observed across different races, research techniques and therapeutic strategies. In a subgroup receiving adjuvant therapy, CD133Low patients achieved significantly better survival than CD133High patients. The findings suggest that CD133 could serve as a predictive marker of poor prognosis and treatment failure in CRC. CD133Low patients could benefit from adjuvant treatments, while CD133High patients should be given novel treatments besides adjuvant therapy. Our results also provide evidence in support of the CSC hypothesis.

Precise localization and visualization of early‐stage prostate cancer (PCa) is critical to improve the success of focal ablation and reduce cancer mortality. However, it remains challenging under the current imaging techniques due to the heterogeneous nature of PCa and the suboptimal sensitivity of the techniques themselves. Herein, a novel genetic amplified nanoparticle tumor‐homing strategy to enhance the MRI accuracy of ultrasmall PCa lesions is reported. This strategy could specifically drive TfR expressions in PCa under PCa‐specific DD3 promoter, and thus remarkably increase Tf‐USPIONs concentrations in a highly accurate manner while minimizing their non‐specific off‐target effects on normal tissues. Consequently, this strategy can pinpoint an ultrasmall PCa lesion, which is otherwise blurred in the current MRI, and thereby addresses the unmet key need in MRI imaging for focal therapy. With this proof‐of‐concept experiment, the synergistic gene–nano strategy holds great promise to boost the MRI effects of a wide variety of commonly used nanoscale and molecular probes that are otherwise limited. In addition, such a strategy may also be translated and applied to MR‐specific imaging of other types of cancers by using their respective tumor‐specific promoters.

In article number 1900928, Gang Han, Yuanjie Niu, and co‐workers develop a prostate‐cancer‐specific genetic approach toward amplified MRI nanoparticles tumor homing. This strategy addresses the unmet key clinical need in MR imaging of ultrasmall prostate cancer lesions. This concept is highly translatable and is expected be able to be implemented in numerous other nanoscale systems and tumor‐specific biomarkers in the near future.