Note: Clinically detectable metastases represent the end products of a complex
series of cell-biological events, which are collectively termed the invasion
metastasis cascade. During metastatic progression, tumor cells exit their
primary sites of growth (local invasion, intravasation), translocate systemically
(survival in the circulation, arrest at a distant organ site, extravasation), and
adapt to survive and thrive in the foreign microenvironments of distant tissues
(micrometastasis formation, metastatic colonization).
Cancer cells are depicted in red.
According Fidler, 2003 [21]. From: Valastyan and Weinberg [23] |
