A GENETIC analysis of cancers is challenging long-held ideas about the disease. It could one day help more patients to survive, and spare others needless treatment.
The most deadly tumours are those that can spread to other places in the body or “metastasise”. Once these secondary tumours form, it is often too late to save a patient.
The received wisdom is that metastatic tumours develop in a series of steps. First a few cells begin to divide out of control and form a primary tumour. Then rare cells within the tumour mutate further and acquire the ability to spread around…
