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Distant metastasis: not out of reach any more

François Bertucci1,2,3 and Daniel Birnbaum1*

Author Affiliations

1 Centre de Recherche en Cancérologie de Marseille, laboratoire d'Oncologie Moléculaire; UMR891 Inserm; Institut Paoli-Calmettes, 13009 Marseille, France

2 Département d'Oncologie Médicale, Institut Paoli-Calmettes, 13009 Marseille, France

3 Faculté de Médecine, Université de la Méditerranée, Marseille, France

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Journal of Biology 2009, 8:28 doi:10.1186/jbiol128

Published: 27 March 2009

Abstract

Metastasis is the major cause of death in breast cancer patients. Gene-expression studies have shown that the likelihood of metastasis can be predicted from analysis of primary tumors. Two recent papers in BMC Medicine and BMC Cancer have established new operational expression signatures containing a limited number of genes involved in angiogenesis or cell proliferation.