The role of Piccolo in cancer treatment: relationship with EGFR and related therapies, and a marker for new targeted therapies

The use of high-throughput technologies becomes more and more relevant every day. Indeed, whole-genome and whole-exome sequencing represent methodologies of particular interest in the discovery of new molecular markers involved in cancer development. In this way, Song and colleagues identified a series of genomic alterations playing a potential relevant role in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) (1). This type of cancer represents the fourth leading cause of cancer-related death (in 2017, the estimated new cases and deaths from ESCC in the USA are 16.940 and 15.690, respectively) with a very poor 5-year survival rate (only up to 25%) (2). Currently ESCC patients can be managed with various techniques, such as endoscopy, surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy (2). However their effect is limited even if different approaches are combined