Characterization of tumors from the viewpoint of tumor stem cells

肿瘤是由单个克隆组成的，但单个肿瘤细胞的特性是不同的。肿瘤干细胞对各种抗肿瘤疗法具有抗性，并且是导致复发的原因。诊断时对肿瘤干细胞数量的评估将有助于制定合适的抗肿瘤治疗方案。然而，迄今为止，还没有建立这样的评价制度。在这里，我们通过免疫组织化学评估肿瘤干细胞的数量，并显示肿瘤干细胞丰富的病例预后不良。

Tumor is composed of a single clone, but the character of individual tumor cells is different one another. Tumor stem cells are resistant to various anti-tumor therapies, and are responsible for recurrence. The evaluation of the amount of tumor stem cells at diagnosis would be helpful for suitable plan of anti-cancer therapy. However, to date, no such evaluation system was established. Here, we evaluated the amount of tumor stem cells by immunohistochemistry, and revealed that cases with rich tumor stem cells showed poor prognosis.