Arteria1 microvascularization and breast cancer colonization in bone

Abstract

Bone is one of the most preferential target organs of cancer metastases. Breast, prostate and lung cancers have a special predilection for colonization in bone. In an animal model in which inoculation of cancer cells into the left cardiac ventricle selectively develops osteolytic bone metastases but rarely forms metastases in non-bone organs, the pattern of breast cancer colonization in bone was studied radiologically and histologically. Colonization of cancer cells in bone was found to initiate and develop along with or at the terminal end of the major arteries running into bone. It should, therefore, be re-recognized that the anatomical vasculature still remains as a critica1 factor which influences cancer colonization in bone in addition to cellular and molecular properties of the bone microenvironment and metastatic cancer cells.