Research Focus: Cancer Metastasis

The JKTG Foundation focuses much of its research funding on better understanding cancer metastasis and ultimately stopping or pausing it.

Metastasis is the process in which a cancer spreads from its original or starting location to other locations within the body, most often lymph nodes.

This is to be distinguished from invasion, which is the growth of a cancer into neighboring tissues. Most cancers metastasize but not all, and when they do metastasize the cancer remains identified by the place where it developed (metastatic breast cancer, for example). While difficult to stop, metastatic cancers are often treated in the same manner as earlier cancer treatment.

Cancer cells spread, or metastasize, by growing into nearby tissue, moving through walls of nearby lymph nodes or blood vessels or spreading through lymphatic system and bloodstream.

For a helpful video breaking down how cancer spreads, please watch this from the National Cancer Institute.

The Foundation is named in part for Jayne Koskinas, wife to founder and president Ted Giovanis, who lost her life to breast cancer metastasis. It has made funding this work important and personal.

Resources on metastasis:

What is metastasis? | The American Society of Clinical Oncology

What is metastatic cancer? | American Cancer Society

Metastatic cancer Q&A | National Cancer Institute