metastasis

This year, cancer researchers uncovered a variety of ways that tumors can survive and spread, ranging from damaging their own DNA to exploiting the nearby microenvironment for nutrients.

Viscous solutions accelerate the migration of tumor cells and may enable metastasis, according to a new study.

Researchers have long observed a connection between bone metastasis and remodeling, which might be due to a close connection between the two cell types. 

Islands of rigid cells within a matrix of soft ones allow tumors to be both solid and fluid, granting them toughness without losing the ability to break apart.

Scientists discover tumor-associated T cells that drive breast cancer metastasis to lymph nodes.

Head and neck cancer cells lacking the peptide involved in energy production were less likely to metastasize in mice.

More cancer cells are shed from primary tumors when individuals are asleep than when they’re awake, according to observations in mouse models and a small cohort of breast cancer patients.

In vitro and mouse experiments show how cancer cells forced through tiny pores—mimicking the physical experience of metastasis—resisted programmed cell death and avoided detection by the immune cells that would normally kill them.

Microbes living inside cancer cells may help them spread to distant sites by enhancing the cells’ resistance to mechanical stress, a study shows.

A new study reports that human colon cancer cells at imminent risk of death can instead develop characteristics needed to colonize new parts of the body.

Because most people are vaccinated against tetanus as children, delivering benign bacteria carrying a tetanus antigen into pancreatic tumors makes them visible to memory cells in the immune system, researchers report.

The immune cells facilitate healing, but they may also help tumors metastasize to the lungs after injury, a study in mice finds.

A new link between inflammation and rampant chromosomal abnormalities reveals novel strategies to treat diverse malignancies.

When micronuclei rupture, chromosomes break, recombine, and form circles, causing inflammation and promoting carcinogenic growth.

A study uncovers a novel connection between the biomolecule and cancer progression.

This year revealed just how much scientists have learned about the disease, from how animals become naturally cancer-resistant to how tumor cells harness extracellular DNA to develop rapid drug resistance.

In a small clinical study, focusing ultrasound beams on tumors in patients’ brains helped open the blood-brain barrier to facilitate drug delivery.