Boveri at 100: cancer evolution, from preneoplasia to malignancy*
This article is part of a short series that was invited in relation to a Symposium held at the European Congress of Pathology, London, September 2014, that celebrated the centenary of the publication, in 1914, of Theodor Boveri's seminal work Zur Frage der Entstehung maligner Tumoren.
No conflicts of interest were declared.
Abstract
In the 100 years since the publication of Boveri's manuscript, ‘Concerning the origin of human tumours’, we have seen many advances in our understanding of how tumours originate, develop and progress. However, reading this article now, it is possible to find conclusions, or more often predictions, of what we now consider basic tenets of tumour biology. These include predicting the stochastic nature of the malignant change and that all tumours are necessarily of clonal origin, perhaps the basis of the modern concepts of field cancerization, of tumour heterogeneity and the clonal evolution of tumours. Modern researchers rarely refer to this paper, yet as a source of ideas it must rank amongst the landmarks in tumour biology of the last 100 years. Copyright © 2014 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
