Grant: Project Grant

Cancers of the upper digestive tract, the esophagus and stomach, are a leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Once diagnosed with these cancers only one in five patients will survive for more than five years. This exceptionally poor predicted outcome is caused by a combination of factors, which include the late detection of tumours that cannot be surgically removed and the limited availability of different treatment options. The spread of these cancers, metastasis, to the lining of the abdominal cavity, the peritoneum, is the leading cause death among these patients. Unfortunately, our understanding of the molecular changes and altered genes that give these cancers the ability spread to distant tissues is extremely limited. Through the systematic molecular characterization of cells from patients that developed metastasis and from patients that did not, we aim to increase our knowledge of the molecular events that lead to and predict the dissemination of the original cancer cells. Our goal is to improve the survival of patients with cancer of the esophagus and stomach by using the identified molecular events to predict, in advance, those patients whose cancer is capable of spreading. These molecular alterations will allow physicians to identify those patients most at risk of this deadly cancer progression and place them on more aggressive treatment protocols. In addition, the identified molecular changes will identify genes that when altered endow cancers cells with the ability to metastasize. These genes represent potential new drug targets and their identification will lead to the development of new therapeutic options for the treatment of this devastating disease.