Understanding Cancer’s Spread

Where it goes, where it grows, and why

As all cancer patients know, the words from a doctor delivering the diagnosis can be devastating. Each patient quickly learns, however, that the tumor may be only the beginning.

Cancer cells (green) trapped in capillaries. Chambers

Adhesion molecules may explain why prostate cancer cells are more likely to stick to cells from the lining of blood vessels that are grown on bone (left) than to such cells grown on plastic (right).