Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. May 15, 2021; 13(5): 312-331
Published online May 15, 2021. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v13.i5.312
Hypoxia and its impact on the tumour microenvironment of gastroesophageal cancers
Ross King, Conall Hayes, Claire L Donohoe, Margaret R Dunne, Maria Davern, Noel E Donlon
Ross King, Conall Hayes, Claire L Donohoe, Margaret R Dunne, Maria Davern, Noel E Donlon, Department of Surgery, St. James’s Hospital Campus, Trinity Translational Medicine Institute, Dublin D8, Ireland
Author contributions: King R wrote the manuscript; King R, Hayes C, Donohoe CL, Dunne MR, Davern M and Donlon NE conceived the work and made substantial revisions to and critique of the content; Davern M and Donlon NE contributed equally to this manuscript; all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors report no known conflict of interests.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Noel E Donlon, BM BCh, Surgical Oncologist, Department of Surgery, St. James’s Hospital Campus, Trinity Translational Medicine Institute, James Street, Dublin D8, Ireland. donlonn@tcd.ie
Received: December 27, 2020
Peer-review started: December 27, 2020
First decision: February 14, 2021
Revised: February 24, 2021
Accepted: April 14, 2021
Article in press: April 14, 2021
Published online: May 15, 2021
Core Tip

Core Tip: Improved methods in measuring the oxygen status in the tumour microenvironment have allowed for a better understanding of the role of hypoxia and how it contributes to tumour progression and treatment resistance. These methods include non-invasive imaging techniques as well as validated hypoxic molecular signatures. Specific hypoxia-targeted therapies have not matched their expectations but may have potential application in combination with traditional treatment approaches in gastroesophageal cancer.