Commentary
Does the act of surgery provoke activation of "latent" metastases in early breast cancer?
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Correspondence: Michael Baum michael@mbaum.freeserve.co.uk
Emeritus Professor of Surgery, University College London, London, UK
Breast Cancer Res 2004, 6:160-161 doi:10.1186/bcr902
Published: 9 June 2004Abstract
This paper is written in support of the challenging article by Retsky and colleagues in this issue of Breast Cancer Research, and develops on the idea that the act of surgery can provoke the outgrowth of dormant micrometastases, which often leads to the failure of screening to deliver its promise. The therapeutic consequence of this idea involves the use of antiangiogenic drugs before surgery.