Metastases

Protein preps cells to survive stress of cancer growth and chemotherapy

Scientists have uncovered a survival mechanism that occurs in breast cells that have just turned premalignant-cells on the cusp between normalcy and cancers-which may lead to new methods of stopping tumors.

Cancer created 14 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Changing cancer's environment to halt its spread

By studying the roles two proteins, thrombospondin-1 and prosaposin, play in discouraging cancer metastasis, a trans-Atlantic research team has identified a five-amino acid fragment of prosaposin that significantly reduces ...

Cancer created May 21, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Lymphatic fluid takes detour

When tumours metastasise, they can block lymphatic vessels, as researchers from ETH Zurich have discovered using a new method. The lymphatic fluid subsequently has to find a new path through the tissue. Such ...

Medical research created May 20, 2013 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Risk factors ID'd for poor cutaneous cell CA outcomes

(HealthDay)—The risks of metastasis and death associated with cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) are low, but significant, and risk factors for poor outcome include tumor diameter, invasion beyond ...

Cancer created May 17, 2013 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Research to end asbestos-related cancer

Scientists from Flinders University are trying to develop a new treatment for a highly aggressive, asbestos-related lung cancer that is set to become more prevalent in the future.

Cancer created May 16, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Breaking through the blood-brain barrier

To mark the European Month of the Brain, we look at one EU-funded project that has focussed efforts on drug delivery across the so-called blood-brain barrier. The blood-brain barrier (BBB), while preforming ...

Medical research created May 13, 2013 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

New cancer driver found: Monoclonal antibody therapy stops tumor growth in mice

(Medical Xpress)—Approximately 90 percent of cancers start within tissues that form the inner linings of various organs. Decades of accumulated genetic mutations can, on occasion, induce cells specialized ...

Cancer created May 08, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Robot-assisted kidney cancer surgery offers many benefits, but at a cost

Robot-assisted surgery to remove kidney cancers has seen a rapid increase in use, and has both replaced and proven safer than laparoscopic procedures for the same purpose, according to a study by the Vattikuti Urology Institute ...

Cancer created May 07, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Amplification of a Stat5 gene produces excess oncogenic protein that drives prostate cancer spread

An international group of investigators, led by researchers at Thomas Jefferson University's Kimmel Cancer Center, have solved the mystery of why a substantial percentage of castrate-resistant metastatic prostate cancer cells ...

Cancer created May 07, 2013 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Exercise could reduce bone tumor growth

(Medical Xpress)—Weight-bearing exercise, often prescribed to combat bone loss, might have anti-cancer effects. Cornell biomedical researchers report that mechanical stimulation of cancerous bone, in making ...

Cancer created May 07, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Some prostate cancer patients more likely to die after weekend ER visits

Patients with prostate cancer that has metastasized, or spread, to other parts of the body face a significantly higher risk of dying when visiting a hospital emergency department on the weekend instead of on a weekday, according ...

Cancer created May 05, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Making cancer less cancerous: Blocking a single gene renders tumors less aggressive

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have identified a gene that, when repressed in tumor cells, puts a halt to cell growth and a range of processes needed for tumors to enlarge and spread to distant sites. The researchers hope that ...

Cancer created May 02, 2013 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (10) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Genetic and clinical factors best to predict late recurrence in estrogen receptor POS breast cancer

A new analysis has provided a comprehensive comparison of scores designed to predict which women with oestrogen-receptor positive breast cancer are at high risk of recurrence beyond five years after diagnosis, and may benefit ...

Cancer created May 02, 2013 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

How some cancers 'poison the soil' to block metastasis

Cancer spread or metastasis can strike unprecedented fear in the minds of cancer patients. The "seed and the soil" hypothesis proposed by Stephen Paget in 1889 is now widely accepted to explain how cancer cells (seeds) are ...

Cancer created Apr 30, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Decoded: Molecular messages that tell prostate and breast cancers to spread

Cancer cells are wily, well-traveled adversaries, constantly side-stepping treatments to stop their spread. But for the first time, scientists at the University of Michigan have decoded the molecular chatter that ramps certain ...

Cancer created Apr 30, 2013 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast


Metastasis, or metastatic disease (sometimes abbreviated mets), is the spread of a disease from one organ or part to another non-adjacent organ or part. It was previously thought that only malignant tumor cells and infections have the capacity to metastasize; however, this is being reconsidered due to new research. The word metastasis means "displacement" in Greek, from μετά, meta, "next", and στάσις, stasis, "placement". The plural is metastases.

Cancer occurs after a single cell in a tissue is progressively genetically damaged to produce a cancer stem cell possessing a malignant phenotype. These cancer stem cells are able to undergo uncontrolled abnormal mitosis, which serves to increase the total number of cancer cells at that location. When the area of cancer cells at the originating site becomes clinically detectable, it is called a primary tumor. Some cancer cells also acquire the ability to penetrate and infiltrate surrounding normal tissues in the local area, forming a new tumor. The newly formed "daughter" tumor in the adjacent site within the tissue is called a local metastasis.

Some cancer cells acquire the ability to penetrate the walls of lymphatic and/or blood vessels, after which they are able to circulate through the bloodstream (circulating tumor cells) to other sites and tissues in the body. This process is known (respectively) as lymphatic or hematogeneous spread.

After the tumor cells come to rest at another site, they re-penetrate through the vessel or walls, continue to multiply, and eventually another clinically detectable tumor is formed. This new tumor is known as a metastatic (or secondary) tumor. Metastasis is one of three hallmarks of malignancy (contrast benign tumors). Most tumors and other neoplasms can metastasize, although in varying degrees (e.g. basal cell carcinoma) rarely metastasize.

When tumor cells metastasize, the new tumor is called a secondary or metastatic tumor, and its cells are like those in the original tumor. This means, for example, that, if breast cancer metastasizes to the lungs, the secondary tumor is made up of abnormal breast cells, not of abnormal lung cells. The tumor in the lung is then called metastatic breast cancer, not lung cancer.

This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.

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