On the theory of tumor self-seeding: implications for metastasis progression in humans
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Correspondence: Julio A Aguirre-Ghiso julio.aguirre-ghiso@mssm.edu
Department of Medicine and Department of Otolaryngology, Division of Hematology and Oncology, Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, One Gustave L. Levy Place, Box 1079, New York, NY 10029, USA
Breast Cancer Research 2010, 12:304 doi:10.1186/bcr2561
Published: 28 April 2010Abstract
Metastasis remains the leading cause of death among cancer patients because few effective treatment options are available. A recent paper proposes a new twist on metastasis. The paper shows that circulating tumor cells can return to the primary tumor, a process termed tumor self-seeding or cross-seeding, and that this helps breeding tumor cells that give rise to aggressive metastatic variants. A viewpoint presented here addresses the implications of these studies for human cancer metastasis.