Giving Compass' Take:

• In a recently published paper on cancer metastasis, Dr. Cyrus Ghajar at Fred Hutchinson discusses his findings: If you can successfully remove disseminated tumor cells commonly found in bone marrow, you can prevent those patients from having metastasis.

• How can donors help fund more cancer research? How can these recent showings drive more incentives for financing cancer studies?

• To find your approach and help to fight cancer, click here.

Researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle may have found a way to essentially smother cancer cells in their sleep, preventing them from ever waking up and forming deadly metastatic tumors.

The work, led by translational researcher Dr. Cyrus Ghajar, has also turned on its ear the longstanding belief that chemotherapy can’t kill dormant disseminated tumor cells — cancer cells that escape early on and hide out in other regions of the body — because those cells are in a “sleeper state.” They’ve stopped growing so chemo, which blindly targets all fast-growing cells, healthy and otherwise, doesn’t work.

That’s not quite the case.

Read the full article about cancer metastasis by Diane Mapes at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center