Metastatic and Metastasized Cancers: Answers to 7 Common Questions - On Cancer - Memorial Sloan Kettering
Many tumors can be eliminated with surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and other treatments. But once cancer spreads, or metastasizes, to other parts of the body, it becomes much harder to stop. In this Q&A, medical oncologist Emily Feld talks about how metastatic cancer is diagnosed and treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). Dr. Feld, who sees patients at MSK Commack on Long Island, specializes in treating patients with genitourinary cancers, including tumors of the prostate, bladder, kidneys, and testicles. Metastatic cancer occurs when cancer cells spread from the organ where they started to a distant part of the body. Metastatic cancers are considered stage 4. Even after cancer has invaded another organ, it is still identified by the place where it developed. For example, prostate cancer that has spread to the bones is not the same as cancer that started in the bones, known as primary bone cancer (of which there are several types, inclu