Bad neighbors: How immune cells help cancer cells get ready to spread

Most cancer deaths are not caused by the original tumor, but by metastases, which form when cancer cells leave the original tumor and spread to other organs. To do so, cancer cells must loosen their attachment to other cancer cells and become more mobile so they can move away from the tumor, a process called epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, or EMT. EMT is a progressive phenomenon, and cancer cells go through an intermediate "hybrid" stage that is the best at forming metastases.

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