Curing cancer? Further along the new pH-centric road and paradigm

Abstract

During the last few years, the understanding of the dysregulated hydrogen ion dynamics and reversed proton gradient of cancer cells has resulted in a new and integral pH-centric paradigm in oncology, a model which embraces most if not all aspects of cancer, from etiopathogenesis to treatment. The cancer-selective abnormality of intracellular alkalinization along with extracellular acidification ("proton gradient reversal") of all types of solid tumors and leukemic cells is finally recognized as a specific and most selective hallmark of malignancy. As a consequence of this acid-base homeostatic failure of cellular hydrogen ion (H +) dynamics, the attempt to induce cellular acidification using proton transport and pump inhibitors (PTIs) and other intracellular acidifiers of different origins is becoming a new therapeutic concept and selective target of cancer treatment. A full issue containing fourteen reviews on the different aspects of the new pH-centric anticancer paradigm has been recently published [1].