Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Oncol. Dec 10, 2015; 6(6): 198-201
Published online Dec 10, 2015. doi: 10.5306/wjco.v6.i6.198
Inorganic phosphate in the development and treatment of cancer: A Janus Bifrons?
Luigi Sapio, Silvio Naviglio
Luigi Sapio, Silvio Naviglio, Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics and General Pathology, Medical School, Second University of Naples, 80138 Naples, Italy
Author contributions: Sapio L performed research and analyzed data; Naviglio S conceived the issues which formed the content of the manuscript and wrote it.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflict of interests.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (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/
Correspondence to: Silvio Naviglio, MD, PhD, Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics and General Pathology, Medical School, Second University of Naples, Via L. De Crecchio 7, 80138 Naples, Italy. silvio.naviglio@unina2.it
Telephone: +39-81-5667517 Fax: +39-81-5665863
Received: May 27, 2015
Peer-review started: May 30, 2015
First decision: July 3, 2015
Revised: August 6, 2015
Accepted: September 29, 2015
Article in press: September 30, 2015
Published online: December 10, 2015
Processing time: 195 Days and 20.2 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Many chronic diseases, including cancer have been proposed to be associated with high-phosphorus intakes and high-serum inorganic phosphate (Pi) concentrations. On the other hand, there is also evidence that Pi can have antiproliferative effects on some cancer cell types, depending on cell status and genetic background and achieve additive cytotoxic effects when combined with doxorubicin, illustrating its potential for clinical applications and suggesting that up-regulating Pi levels at local sites for brief times, might contribute to the development of novel and cheap modalities for therapeutic intervention in some tumors, including triple-negative breast cancer and osteosarcoma.