When effective anticancer therapies are, in fact, destabilizing the tumor’s Group Phenotypic Composition

Abstract Many cancer therapies achieve durable control without complete tumor eradication, suggesting that disrupting tumor organization may be more critical than killing cells. We propose that effective treatments converge by destabilizing the tumor’s Group Phenotypic Composition (GPC), the functional and spatial organization of interacting cell populations. When this organization collapses, tumors lose coherence. This perspective provides a unifying framework for designing therapies targeting tumor-level dynamics rather than cell number alone.