Abstract
It is now a well-worn adage, almost a cliché in cancer research circles, that the process of cancer metastasis is an inefficient process. Primary tumours may release millions of cells into the vascular system and yet a very small proportion, estimated at about 0.01%, can successfully form distant metastases. There has been some debate as to whether cells with metasta-sising ability pre-exist in a neoplasm and hence their dissemination to distant sites is a non-random process or whether, as Weiss (1983) has argued, most cancer cells have the ability to metastasise and that they randomly enter a ‘transient metastatic’ compartment which increases their chances of negotiating the multiple hurdles of the metastatic cascade.
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© 1987 G. V. Sherbet
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Sherbet, G.V. (1987). The Generation of the Metastatic Phenotype. In: The Metastatic Spread of Cancer. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09577-3_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09577-3_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-09579-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-09577-3
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