Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) play a significant role in at least two key processes underlying neoplastic progression: angiogenesis and immune surveillance. TAMs phenotypic changes play important role in tumor vessel abnormalization/ normalization. M2-like TAMs stimulate immunosuppression and formation of defective tumor blood vessels leading to tumor progression. In contrast M1-like TAMs...

The fact that various immune cells, including macrophages, can be found in tumor tissue has long been known. With the recent introduction of the novel concept of macrophage differentiation into a classically activated phenotype (M1) and an alternatively activated phenotype (M2), the role of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) is gradually beginning to be elucidated. Specifically, in human malig...

Macrophages occur as resident cells of fetal origin or as infiltrating blood monocyte-derived cells. Despite the critical role of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) in tumor progression, the contribution of these developmentally and functionally distinct macrophage subsets and their alteration by the tumor microenvironment are poorly understood. We have addressed this question by comparing TAM...

Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) promote cancer development and progression by releasing various cytokines and chemokines. Previously, we have found that the number of COX-2+ TAMs was associated with lymph node metastasis in breast cancer. However, the mechanism remains enigmatic. In this study, we show that COX-2 in breast TAMs enhances the metastatic potential of breast cancer cells. COX-2...

Macrophages are important components of the tumor-associated infiltrate and are qualified as one of the major players of the cancer-related inflammation. It was shown that tumor cells can either stimulate or mediate apoptosis of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs). To date, there is no general agreement regarding the influence of TAMs and their numbers on the progression of hepatocellular carci...

BACKGROUND To evaluate tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) infiltration and microvessel density as possible prognostic factors related to prostate cancer (PCa) progression. METHODS Immunostaining of TAMs in prostate biopsy specimens was performed using a monoclonal antibody CD68 and microvessel density (MVD) using von Willebrand factor (vWF) from 25 specimens with high-grade prostatic intraep...

The tumor microenvironment is composed of tumor cells, fibroblasts, endothelial cells and infiltrating immune cells, which may inhibit or promote tumor growth and progression. The objectives of this retrospective study were to characterize the density of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) in breast cancer, and to correlate the density of TAMs with clinicopathological parameters. Paraffin-embed...

Mannose receptor is considered as a hallmark of M2-oriented tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs), but its utility in TAMs was rarely reported. Therefore, deoxymannose (DM), a high-affinity ligand of mannose receptor, was labeled with near-infrared dye cyanine 7 (Cy7), and its feasibility of targeted imaging on TAMs was evaluated in vitro and in vivo. The Cy7-DM was synthesized, and its binding a...

OBJECTIVE Comprehensive studies have investigated the prognostic and clinicopathological value of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) in gastric cancer patients, yet results remain controversial. Therefore, we performed a meta-analysis to clarify this issue. METHODS PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library databases were searched to identify eligible studies. We extracted hazard ratios (HRs) ...

In gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), the most common human sarcoma, tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) have been found to be abundant and surprisingly M1-like, exhibiting antitumoral activities. However, TAMs switch to M2-like during the course of imatinib therapy, but upon drug resistance TAMs revert to M1-like. Therefore, the oncologic efficacy of TAM depletion may depend on tumor type ...