Access
To read this article in full you may need to log in, make a payment or gain access through a site license (see right).
Review
Nature Reviews Cancer 5, 591–602 (1 August 2005) | doi:10.1038/nrc1670
Breast cancer metastasis: markers and models
&
Abstract
Breast cancer starts as a local disease, but it can metastasize to the lymph nodes and distant organs. At primary diagnosis, prognostic markers are used to assess whether the transition to systemic disease is likely to have occurred. The prevailing model of metastasis reflects this view — it suggests that metastatic capacity is a late, acquired event in tumorigenesis. Others have proposed the idea that breast cancer is intrinsically a systemic disease. New molecular technologies, such as DNA microarrays, support the idea that metastatic capacity might be an inherent feature of breast tumours. These data have important implications for prognosis predicition and our understanding of metastasis.
To read this article in full you may need to log in, make a payment or gain access through a site license (see right).
