The role of macrophages within microenvironment in a lung cancer development and progression

Lung cancer, including carcinogenesis and therapy, is one of the main research focuses today. One of the main reasons for that is the very high mortality rate of patients with lung cancer. Cancer tissue is very heterogeneous, consisting of malignant tumor cells with many different cell types, proteins, and signaling molecules, all together forming the tumor microenvironment. The concept that tumor development is primarily based on mutations has been reapproached from the side of interaction between immune cells of the host, tumor cells, and tumor microenvironment. All components of the cancer microenvironment interact with each other and with tumor cells in a complex manner, both promoting tumor cell growth and development, as well as suppressing it. This interplay is very complicated and today still not completely understood. The most prevalent cells among leukocytes in the cancer microenvironment are macrophages. These are called tumor-associated macrophages and are still very difficult to differentiate and identify by single markers. However, it is clear that they have a very important role in tumor development and progression in lung cancer, as in many other cancers. In patients with lung carcinoma, there is a correlation between tumorassociated macrophages and prognosis, although not uniform. © 2017, Springer International Publishing AG