Tumorigenesis is the generation and proliferation of cells that have undergone genotypical and phenotypical alterations that
disrupt the physiological balance between proliferation and death. In humans, evidence shows that tumorigenesis is a multistep process, where each step is a genetic mutational event that contributes to the cell tumorigenictraits.1Douglas Hanahan highlighted in his highly cited “Hallmarks of Cancer” (2000) that
mutated cells display six potentials that are shared by most if not all cancer types (Fig 1). Those characteristics, which dictate cancer expansion, include self-sufficiency in growth signals, insensitivity to growth-inhibitory signals, evasion of programmed cell death (known as apoptosis), limitless replicative potential, sustained angiogenesis, and tissue invasion and metastasis.