Video: See for yourself the cancer cells spread throughout the body

Cancer cells appear to depend on a strange survival mechanism to spread throughout the body, this is the result of a newly published study.

The spread of cancer throughout the body is one of the biggest challenges in treatment.

The study examined changes in cancer cells when they escaped from tumors in zebrafish cultured cells and mice. This shows that molecules called "integrins" may be the crux of the problem.

The spread of cancer throughout the body is one of the biggest challenges in treatment. It is often not the initial tumor that is destroyed but it will continue to grow later. This happens when cancer cells can get rid of the original site and move to other parts of the body and plant new tumors.

Integrins are proteins on the surface of a cell. They attach to cells and interact with the surrounding environment. When cancer cells spread and move to metastasis - integrins move from being "adherent" to a new form called "inside-in ", penetrating into the cell.