[Current status of research on cancer metastasis]

Metastasis is the most critical problem for the oncologists to treat cancer patients. The processes of cancer invasion and metastasis consist of a long series of sequential, interrelated, and complicated steps. Understanding the mechanisms responsible for cancer invasion and metastasis is, therefore, a primary goal of cancer research and will produce new approaches to control and inhibit cancer metastasis. Massive investigations are being carried out for cancer metastasis. Recently many investigations on the research fields other than cancer result in being related with metastasis research. We reviewed the current findings, including our data, on the research for cancer metastasis and discussed the current status of the research.