认识癌症与炎症间的因果关系及其意义

炎症是指机体对组织细胞损伤的反应,而癌症是指所有恶性肿瘤的总称.表面上看,两者是截然不同的.近年研究表明,大约1/5的癌症患者有长期慢性炎症刺激,因而提出＂癌症相关性炎＂的概念.显然,炎症是因,癌症是果.但是,4/5的癌症患者并找不到慢性炎症背景,然而,其癌症组织内也有炎细胞浸润,此种情况癌症应为因,但机理基本上不清楚.癌症与炎症的因果关系主要包括上述两种情况,阐明其机理对患者的防治均有重要意义.

Understanding Causal Relationship between Cancer and Inflammation and Its Significance

Inflammation is a response of tissues or cells to an injury. Cancer is a general term of all malignant tumors. Obviously, they are totally different terms. However, recent researches indicate that about 1/5 of cancer patients have a chronic inflammatory disease and the term ＂cancer-associated inflammation＂ was born. In this situation, inflammation is a cause and cancer is its result. However, no any chronic inflammatory disease was found in the rest 4/5 of the patients. Importantly, however, different inflammatory ceils were frequently found in these cancer tissues, which were seen as the cause, but the mechanisms are basically unclear. Scientific study on relationship between inflammation and cancer should include the above two situations and it is very important for the prevention and treatment of the patients to reveal related mechanisms.