Basic and clinical research accomplished during the last few years on embryonic, fetal, amniotic, umbilical cord blood, and adult stem cells has constituted a revolution in regenerative medicine and cancer therapies by providing the possibility of generating multiple therapeutically useful cell types. These new cells could be used for treating numerous genetic and degenerative disorders. Among them, age-related functional defects, hematopoietic and immune system disorders, heart failures, chronic liver injuries, diabetes, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, arthritis, and muscular, skin, lung, eye, and digestive disorders as well as aggressive and recurrent cancers could be successfully treated by stem cell-based therapies. This review focuses on the recent advancements in adult stem cell biology in normal and pathological conditions. We describe how these results have improved our understanding on critical and unique functions of these rare sub-populations of multipotent and undifferentiated cells with an unlimited self-renewal capacity and high plasticity. Finally, we discuss some major advances to translate the experimental models on ex vivo and in vivo expanded and/or differentiated stem cells into clinical applications for the development of novel cellular therapies aimed at repairing genetically altered or damaged tissues/organs in humans. A particular emphasis is made on the therapeutic potential of different tissue-resident adult stem cell types and their in vivo modulation for treating and curing specific pathological disorders.

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Overcoming intrinsic and acquired resistance of cancer stem/progenitor cells to current clinical treatments represents a major challenge in treating and curing the most aggressive and metastatic cancers. This review summarizes recent advances in our understanding of the cellular origin and molecular mechanisms at the basis of cancer initiation and progression as well as the heterogeneity of cancers arising from the malignant transformation of adult stem/progenitor cells. We describe the critical functions provided by several growth factor cascades, including epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), platelet-derived growth factor receptor (PDGFR), stem cell factor (SCF) receptor (KIT), hedgehog and Wnt/β -catenin signalling pathways that are frequently activated in cancer progenitor cells and are involved in their sustained growth, survival, invasion and drug resistance. Of therapeutic interest, we also discuss recent progress in the development of new drug combinations to treat the highly aggressive and metastatic cancers including refractory/relapsed leukaemias, melanoma and head and neck, brain, lung, breast, ovary, prostate, pancreas and gastrointestinal cancers which remain incurable in the clinics. The emphasis is on new therapeutic strategies consisting of molecular targeting of distinct oncogenic signalling elements activated in the cancer progenitor cells and their local microenvironment during cancer progression. These new targeted therapies should improve the efficacy of current therapeutic treatments against aggressive cancers, and thereby preventing disease relapse and enhancing patient survival.

This review summarizes the recent knowledge obtained on the molecular mechanisms involved in the intrinsic and acquired resistance of cancer cells to current cancer therapies. We describe the cascades that are often altered in cancer cells during cancer progression that may contribute in a crucial manner to drug resistance and disease relapse. The emphasis is on the implication of ATPbinding cassette (ABC) multidrug efflux transporters in drug disposition and antiapoptotic factors, including epidermal growth factor receptor cascades and deregulated enzymes in ceramide metabolic pathways. The altered expression and activity of these signaling elements may have a critical role in the resistance of cancer cells to cytotoxic effects induced by diverse chemotherapeutic drugs and cancer recurrence. Of therapeutic interest, new strategies for reversing the multidrug resistance and developing more effective clinical treatments against the highly aggressive, metastatic, and recurrent cancers, based on the molecular targeting of the cancer progenitor cells and their further differentiated progeny, are also described.Important advances in the development of novel early diagnostic and prognostic methods and therapeutic treatments of cancers using surgical tumor resection, hormonal therapies, radiotherapy, or adjuvant chemotherapy, alone or in combination, have been achieved in past years. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] This has led to a substantial increase in the cure rate for patients diagnosed in the early stages of localized cancers. For patients diagnosed in the late stages of locally invasive and metastatic cancers, the systemic chemotherapeutic regimens represent one of the principal clinical options. In general, the current chemotherapeutic treatments may contribute to enhancing the time to disease progression, overall survival, and quality of life for patients with advanced and aggressive disease states. Unfortunately, current chemotherapeutic treatments for advanced cancers often result in disease relapse and ultimately lead to the death of the patients. [2][3][4][5][6]9,11,12,[14][15][16][17][18][19] The development of resistance by cancer cells to hormonal therapies, radiotherapy, and chemotherapeutic drugs, which usually occurs during cancer progression and after long-term treatment, still represents a major challenge in the clinical cure of advanced and metastatic cancer forms. Therefore, this underlines the critical importance of establishing Correspondence: M Mimeault or SK Batra (mmimeault@unmc.edu or sbatra@unmc.edu). CONFLICT OF INTERESTThe authors declared no conflict of interest. NIH Public Access NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript molecular mechanisms involved in the drug disposition and resistance or multidrug resistance (MDR) of cancer cells for improving current therapies against aggressive cancers in the clinics. Numerous works have indicated that the alterations in diverse signaling elements may contribute to high levels of resistance to...

Multidisciplinary care for patients with MIBC and metastatic bladder cancer is critical. The standard treatment of MIBC (cT2-T4a N0M0) is neoadjuvant cisplatin-based combination chemotherapy followed by radical cystectomy. In cisplatin-ineligible patients, radical cystectomy alone is recommended. Adjuvant cisplatin-based chemotherapy may be offered to high-risk patients who have not received neoadjuvant therapy. Chemoradiotherapy may be offered as an alternative to cystectomy in appropriately selected patients with MIBC and in some patients for whom cystectomy is not an option. Metastatic disease should be treated with cisplatin-containing combination chemotherapy or with carboplatin combination chemotherapy or single agents in patients ineligible for cisplatin.Additional information is available at http://www.asco.org/endorsements/MIBC and www.asco.org/guidelineswiki.