癌症的自然历史可以通过进化视角来理解，因为癌症发展的驱动力是更适应的克隆体的突变和选择。癌症的生长和进展是涉及破坏正常组织结构、侵袭和转移的空间过程。因此，空间模式是组织学肿瘤分级和分期的一个重要组成部分，因为它们可以衡量从正常到恶性疾病的进展。此外，肿瘤细胞是肿瘤细胞及其周围环境的生态系统的一部分。一系列新的空间基因组、转录组和蛋白组技术提供了新的研究癌症进化的途径，具有极高的分子和空间细节。这些方法使得对肿瘤微环境、其中的细胞相互作用和微解剖结构进行精确的表征成为可能。结合空间基因组学，肿瘤和微环境共同进化，这有助于解释可观察到的异质性模式，并提供了新的治疗干预途径。© 2022. Springer Nature Limited.

The natural history of cancers can be understood through the lens of evolution given that the driving forces of cancer development are mutation and selection of fitter clones. Cancer growth and progression are spatial processes that involve the breakdown of normal tissue organization, invasion and metastasis. For these reasons, spatial patterns are an integral part of histological tumour grading and staging as they measure the progression from normal to malignant disease. Furthermore, tumour cells are part of an ecosystem of tumour cells and their surrounding tumour microenvironment. A range of new spatial genomic, transcriptomic and proteomic technologies offers new avenues for the study of cancer evolution with great molecular and spatial detail. These methods enable precise characterizations of the tumour microenvironment, cellular interactions therein and micro-anatomical structures. In conjunction with spatial genomics, it emerges that tumours and microenvironments co-evolve, which helps explain observable patterns of heterogeneity and offers new routes for therapeutic interventions.© 2022. Springer Nature Limited.