New microchip demonstrates how metastasis takes place

Nearly 70 percent of patients with advanced breast cancer experience skeletal metastasis, in which cancer cells migrate from a primary tumor into bone -- a painful development that can cause fractures and spinal compression. While scientists are attempting to better understand metastasis in general, not much is known about how and why certain cancers spread to specific organs, such as bone, liver, and lungs. Now researchers have developed a three-dimensional microfluidic platform that mimics the spread of breast cancer cells into a bonelike environment.

Read the whole article on Science Daily

More from Science Daily