Reflections on the spread of metastasis to cancer prevention.

Most patients with a lethal cancer die of metastasis, the control of which deserves to be one of the most urgent missions of cancer treatment. For some subsets of colorectal cancer, metastasis is stimulated by chemokines or Notch signaling at early stages that coincide with the inflammatory phase of postoperative wound healing. This temporary phase may provide a unique opportunity for "metastasis prevention," because some novel agents have been developed that target such chemokine receptors or Notch signaling.