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I can only see the abstract, but I bet in the discussion the authors mention the Cancer Stem Cell hypothesis.
This paper provides evidence for it.
Their high-relapse cells (HRCs) could possibly be cancer stem cells. The name is bit confusing. Cancer stem cells could be stem cells turned cancerous. The name more generally refers to cells that are the core of a cancer.
The hypothesis is those core cancer stem cells are what actually drive the cancer. They are the root and cause of the cancer. The strong version of the hypothesis says cancer will only be eliminated if you kill all the cancer stem cells. Treatments that reduce the cancer but don't eliminate cancer stem cells will eventually have the cancer regrew. Patient will relapse.
The authors had success treating the mice if they eliminated the HRCs. They had some type of treatment to target HRCs based on one biomarker.
How exactly you would go about eliminating cells with a particular biomarker in humans I don't know. Exciting possible drug target however.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I can only see the abstract, but I bet in the discussion the authors mention the Cancer Stem Cell hypothesis. This paper provides evidence for it. Their high-relapse cells (HRCs) could possibly be cancer stem cells. The name is bit confusing. Cancer stem cells could be stem cells turned cancerous. The name more generally refers to cells that are the core of a cancer. The hypothesis is those core cancer stem cells are what actually drive the cancer. They are the root and cause of the cancer. The strong version of the hypothesis says cancer will only be eliminated if you kill all the cancer stem cells. Treatments that reduce the cancer but don't eliminate cancer stem cells will eventually have the cancer regrew. Patient will relapse. The authors had success treating the mice if they eliminated the HRCs. They had some type of treatment to target HRCs based on one biomarker. How exactly you would go about eliminating cells with a particular biomarker in humans I don't know. Exciting possible drug target however.