Submission statement:

According to a study published in Nature, an international teamof researchers has identified a mechanism that allows cancer cells tospread throughout the body. They found that cancer cells move fasterwhen they are surrounded by thicker fluids, a change that occurs whenlymph drainage is disrupted by a primary tumor.

These findings provide a potential new target for stopping metastasis, which is responsible for 90% of cancer deaths.“Thisis really the first time that the viscosity of the extracellular fluidhas been looked at in detail,” says John D. Lewis, professor and BirdDogs Chair in Translational Oncology at the University of Alberta’sFaculty of Medicine & Dentistry. “Now that we know that fluidviscosity signals cancer cells to move in a specific way, we canpotentially use drugs to basically short-circuit that signaling pathwayand encourage cancer cells to slow down, or even maybe to stop.