Journal of the National Cancer Institute Advance Access originally published online on August 8, 2007
JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute 2007 99(16):1220-1221; doi:10.1093/jnci/djm124
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© Oxford University Press 2007.
NEWS |
TRAVERSING THE BODY
Researchers Unravel How Metastatic Cancers Leave Home and Take Over Other Tissues
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Like ancient Vikings, tumors send voyagers off from their malignant home to pillage and plunder other tissues in the body. The trips appear to follow a plan, since the same cancer types tend to travel to similar destination tissues in patient after patient.
But the itinerary of these metastatic cancer cells remains a mystery to oncologists and physicians, even though 90% of deaths from tumors are due to metastases. The questions abound: Not only why do they break off, but how, and why do they come to rest where they do? Unfortunately, the nature of metastases has made them traditionally harder to study than solid tumors. "The reason not a lot of studies are done on metastases is because it's something you have to do in vivo," says molecular biologist Yibin Kang, Ph.D., of Princeton University in New Jersey.
In the last half-dozen years, researchers have been making strides in
Schools of Thought
Home Sweet Home
Remodeling the New Pad