Cancer metastases: challenges and opportunities

Cancer metastasis is the major cause of cancer morbidity and mortality, and accounts for about 90% of cancer deaths. Although cancer survival rate has been significantly improved over the years, the improvement is primarily due to early diagnosis and cancer growth inhibition. Limited progress has been made in the treatment of cancer metastasis due to various factors. Current treatments for cancer metastasis are mainly chemotherapy and radiotherapy, though the new generation anti-cancer drugs (predominantly neutralizing antibodies for growth factors and small molecule kinase inhibitors) do have the effects on cancer metastasis in addition to their effects on cancer growth. Cancer metastasis begins with…