Akbar Shoukat Ali, Arzoo Ajaz, Heeba Hamid.
Emerging protagonists in cancer metastasis: An oath of allegiance by platelets.
J Pak Med Assoc Jan ;67(3):330-1.

The global burden of cancer is burgeoning at steady rate on account of genetic insults (5-10%), as well as an increasing prevalence of unhealthy and preventable lifestyle risk factors (90-95%) such as smoking, alcohol, stress and sedentary habits.1 More recent mortality data suggests that, in 2012, 8.2 million cancer deaths were registered globally.2 Annual death toll, besides, is estimated to heighten, by 2030, to 13.1 million.3 Mortality trend attributes 90% of cancer-associated deaths to metastasis, a perturbing phenomenon in oncological medicine that endows cancer with the propensity to dodge immunological hijacking, pervade and survive circulatory territory, and reproduce within distinct cellular lineages (distant organ systems) through complex cellular and molecular signals.4 Indeed, metastasis-assisted mortalities have reached pandemic proportions. Regrettably, the underlying molecular pathways harmonizing the dissemination of primary tumour to remote tissues of the body remain to be uncovered. Metastasis represents the sequential and successful transfiguration of tumour cells to encroach established nearby (primary) and distant (secondary) tissues integrity, stochastically by compromising their genetically scripted cellular behaviour. Genetically speaking, the high vulnerability of genetic mutations and aberrant epigenetic regulations (such as loss of p53, the tumour suppressor protein) are critical for cancer cells to envision aggressive metastatic prospect.5

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