Tumors are notorious for being harder than normal tissue, making them possible to identify through palpation. However, scientists who study individual cancer cells have found that the cells are soft—softness that is required for tumors to metastasize by squeezing through surrounding tissues and vessels en route to colonizing new locations. The paradoxical character of tumors that are simultaneously soft and yet hard to the physician’s touch has mystified scientists and clinicians for decades.
But now, after more than six years of back and forth with peer reviewers and journals, an international team of researchers across multiple scientific and medical fields says they’ve solved the enigma: Tumors are both hard and soft. “Islands” of rigid tumor cells are interwoven in a “sea” of fluid cells, the team reports September 29 in Nature Physics. This special arrangement makes cancerous growths tough enough to push against the surrounding tissues as the tumor grows ...
