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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 Oct 1.
Published in final edited form as: Semin Cancer Biol. 2020 Jan 15;65:38–50. doi: 10.1016/j.semcancer.2020.01.002

Figure 1. The Cancer-Inflammation Cycle.

Figure 1.

Cancer inflammation is a cyclic process that is initiated at disease conception. The cycle is dynamic and evolves with cancer progression. This cycle can be divided into six major steps, starting with the release of pro-inflammatory signals that elaborate the mobilization (from bone marrow or adjacent tissues), recruitment, and differentiation of myeloid cells. Tumor-infiltrating myeloid cells then orchestrate a microenvironment that is supportive of cancer growth, metastasis, immune evasion, and therapeutic resistance. Each step is described above, with the anatomic location of each immunologic event given including processes occurring extra-tumoral (grey), intra-tumoral (blue), and within draining lymph nodes (orange).