Question: Can cancer 'move' and if so, how fast?

Karin Purshouse answered on 15 Jun 2022: last edited 15 Jun 2022 10:01 am

Amazing video from Holly!
But unfortunately, yes it can. What’s interesting is that not all cancers do so in the same way. Some of them do it via the blood stream, some more via the lymphatic system. Some cancers don’t do it very much at all, like a skin cancer called basal cell carcinoma which hardly ever spreads. Similarly brain cancer, which is what I study, doesn’t spread beyond the brain – although it moves in a different way in that it really spreads out where it is, which makes it difficult to remove. We know the pattern of spread that is common in most cancers which is how we know how to monitor it, so for example in breast cancer, patients always have their lymph nodes examined to check for spread when they are diagnosed.
The speed of spread varies hugely between cancers. Some unfortunately move very quickly – like small cell lung cancer. Some move much more slowly. And even then, they vary between people, probably due to genetic factors we don’t yet understand.
It’s a great question, and because it’s so hard to make sense of it, there is a lot of research going on in this area! It’s not my specialist science area, so check out the video in Holly’s post. I hope that adds a clinical perspective to your question!