'Self-seeding' of cancer cells may play a critical role in tumor progression

Thursday, December 24, 2009 - 12:07 in Health & Medicine

Cancer progression is commonly thought of as a process involving the growth of a primary tumor followed by metastasis, in which cancer cells leave the primary tumor and spread to distant organs. A new study by researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center shows that circulating tumor cells - cancer cells that break away from a primary tumor and disseminate to other areas of the body - can also return to and grow in their tumor of origin, a newly discovered process called "self-seeding."

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