Patients with advanced breast or prostate cancers usually develop bone metastases. The principal complications resulting from metastatic bone disease are pain, spinal cord compression, pathologic fractures and bone marrow suppression. Improving the management of bone metastases is crucial to quality of life for patients with breast and prostate cancer.

Advances in understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the pathophysiology of bone metastasis are driving the development of new therapeutic strategies.

The ability of an epithelial cell to adhere to its neighbor and to the extracellular environment is an essential process that defines in part a normal multicellular organism. In the post-genomic era of cancer biology, it is known that epithelial tumors are multi-clonal and are genetically unstable. In contrast, during the process of tumor metastasis, which is the major cause of death from cancer, a restricted set of adhesion molecules are displayed on the tumor cell surface. The adhesion molecules provide a selective advantage for migration of the tumor cell to a distant site. In this...

Metastasis (spread of cancer in the body) is the main cause of death for patients with breast cancer, the leading female tumour in the industrialised countries and developing countries alike. The biology and treatment of breast cancer metastasis remains an active area of scientific and clinical investigation.

Written by experts in the subject area, the book has covered a broad range of topics in the metastasis of breast cancer, from genetics, biology to clinical management. Main topics include genetic control, biology, growth factors, cell adhesion, cell motility and invasion,...

Bone Metastases: A Translational and Clinical Approach serves as both an introductory and reference book focusing on the field of metastatic bone disease. Featuring contributions from experts in the field, this volume:

• describes the molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in the formation of bone metastases,
• comments on the role of angiogenesis,
• presents the newer advances made in the understanding of the clinical picture and symptoms of patients,
• analyses the role of bone markers in research and clinical practice
...

Cancer Morbidity and mortality result from invasive and metastatic spread. Currently, no therapies are aimed at the underlying mechanisms that enable this progression due to only nascent recognition of the distinct biology which occurs only during tumor dissemination. Recent advances have highlighted the central role of cell motility during the dynamic and transient process of tumor invasion and metastasis. This book includes state-of-the-art updates by international leaders in these studies. Chapters first present the novel model systems that enable new investigations and insights....

Lymphangiogenesis and Cancer Metastasis introduces the new field of lymphatic vessel growth and development, and its relationship to the metastatic spread of cancer cells.

The book covers all aspects of this new field from the fundamental role that protein growth factors and their receptors play in lymphangiogenesis to the potential application of these advances to cancer diagnosis and treatment. Other clinical aspects explored include the mechanisms and importance of lymph node metastasis, the role of the lymphatics in lymphangioleiomyomatosis and Kaposi s sarcoma,...