Early stages of cancer are curable by surgical removal of the primary lesions, however, more advanced cases are often refractory to therapeutic approaches and are more commonly life-threatening, primarily due to cancer metastasis in gastrointestinal cancers. Such biological events are collectively characterized as tumor heterogeneity, the cause of which is the existence of cancer stem cells. To improve cancer survival, therapy-resistant cancer cells should be eradicated. To this end, recent rapid progress in medical science, such as innovative medical technologies including cancer reprogramming, RNA pharmacology and drug delivery systems, all of which effectively target cancer stem cells, has facilitated this objective.
Keywords: cancer stem cell; cancer therapy; gastrointestinal organs.