How can we integrate the biology of breast cancer cell dormancy into clinical practice?
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Updated: Jul 13, 2026

An In Vitro System to Study Tumor Dormancy and the Switch to Metastatic Growth
Published on: August 11, 2011
Islam E Elkholi1, April A N Rose2, Julio A Aguirre-Ghiso3
1Gerald Bronfman Department of Oncology, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada; Lady Davis Institute, Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, QC, Canada; Montreal Clinical Research Institute (IRCM), Montreal, QC, Canada; Molecular Biology Programs, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada.
Abstract:
Clinical practice and clinical research heavily rely on primary tumors, circulating tumor DNA, and/or overt metastases as sources of material for predicting or investigating breast cancer metastatic relapses. However, these approaches do not consider emerging fundamentals in the biology of metastatic dormancy and relapse. Conversely, the field of metastatic dormancy often discounts key clinical factors influencing relapse dynamics (e.g., patient's age and overall health condition). Here, we delineate these disparities into four gaps and propose a framework to bridge them.
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