MICROBIO 160 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Metastasis, Blood Vessel, Melanoma

• School: UMASS-Amherst
• Department: Microbiology
• Course: MICROBIO 160
• Professor: Wilmore Welby

Document Summary

Spread of tumors to distant locations is of great importance to cancer. To begin the process, individual cells must break away from the tumor. Once inside the blood vessel, some die from these reasons***: Unable to survive because they just float around in circulation. They can encounter mechanical damage as they move through tight places and junctions. They get killed by the immune systems. Even when they get through to the new site, the environment could not be suitable. How and where the cells stop depends on the type of cancer. 90% of cancers kill you because of metastasis. There are 3 main ways a cancer spreads. Local spread (forcing its way through normal tissue) These patterns help determine where the traveling cancer will end up. Helps predict where cancer will go in the body. The type and stage of your cancer determines whether it"s likely to spread (metastasize).