OnCo
termsTerm

Hallmark: activating invasion and metastasis

Cancer cells detach, invade, travel, and colonise other organs, the process responsible for most cancer deaths.

EMT programmes, matrix degradation, intravasation, dormancy, and colonisation. No approved drug targets metastasis directly; adjuvant therapy, MRD monitoring, and metastasis-directed radiotherapy are the clinical tools.

Cancer biology: what this kind of term is about · animated schematic, not to scale
Category
Cancer biology

Key papers

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reviewCell 2000
The Hallmarks of Cancer: six capabilities every tumour must acquire

The hallmarks are the mental map most oncologists and researchers use to think about what cancer is and where drugs act. A newcomer can understand nearly every therapy as an attack on one hallmark: kinase inhibitors on proliferative signalling, checkpoint blockade on immune evasion, anti-VEGF drugs on angiogenesis.

Connected

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technologies

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MRD / molecular residual disease testingSBRT / SABR (stereotactic radiotherapy)

pathways

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Epithelial–mesenchymal transition & drug effluxIntravasation & circulating tumour cellsInvasion: proteases, adhesion & the invasive frontTGF-β signallingThe metastatic cascadeTumour dormancy

terms

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Disseminated tumour cells (DTCs)Hallmarks of CancerInvasiveMetastasisOligometastatic disease

key papers

1
The Hallmarks of Cancer: six capabilities every tumour must acquire