Tumor infiltration of major blood vessels, not metastasis, may be primary cause of cancer death

Tumor infiltration of major blood vessels, not metastasis, may be primary cause of cancer death
Medical Xpress; UT Southwestern Medical Center; 10/16/25
The ultimate cause of death from cancer may not be metastatic disease, as researchers have long surmised, but an infiltration of tumors into major blood vessels that cause blood clots and multiorgan failure, a one-of-a-kind clinical study led by UT Southwestern Medical Center suggests. These findings, published in Nature Medicine (Macrovascular tumor infiltration and circulating tumor cell cluster dynamics in patients with cancer approaching the end of life), could spur interventions that extend the lives of patients with advanced cancers. "The big question we were trying to answer: What kills cancer patients? Why do they die one specific day rather than six months earlier or later?" said Matteo Ligorio, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Surgery and in the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center.