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Bone Metastasis

Decent Essays

CANCER METASTASIS TO DISTANT ORGANS

Metastasis, the spread of tumor cells from a primary tumor to a secondary site within the human body remains one of the most life-threatening pathological events [3]. It is responsible for more than 90% of cancer associated mortality; therefore, the clinical need to prevent or target metastasis is great [4].

Breast cancer frequently spreads to bone as well as lung, liver and brain. Notably, bone metastases are not readily detected, because they are asymptomatic until patients complain bone pain in most cases.
Furthermore, it usually develops at later stages of illness and many cancer patients die before bone metastases are clinically detected and become problematic. However, over the last a decade bone metastasis has come under the spotlight since it causes many problems in the management of …show more content…

Cancer cells migrating in the circulation are called circulating tumor cells (CTCs), which are proposed to be a promising target to interrupt distant metastatic cascades [4]. This process is likely common for all metastatic cancer cells regardless of the target organ.
In the bloodstream, a very small number of tumor cells survive to reach the target organ, indicating that metastasis formation must be regarded as a very ineffective event [7,8]. Millions of carcinoma cells enter into the circulatory system, but the majority of them die during transportation, and only 1-5% of viable cells are successful in formation of secondary deposits in distinct sites [7-9]. It is known that many cells of the immune system, such as NK cells, macrophages and lymphocytes, could contribute to the elimination of tumor cells in the vascular

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