Question: Is there a way of slowing down the blood or slowing down the process

Kathryn McMahon answered on 11 Mar 2013:

Hi, do you mean the process of the cancer spreading around the body? Slowing the flow of blood won’t help, the cancer will still get there, just more slowly, and you might make the patient really ill (the rest of the body needs blood too!).
Scientists have found a way to stop cancers from making new blood vessels. They have made a drug called avastin that stops the cancers from telling the blood vessels that they need to start growing. This drug can help the patients to survive longer if they’re suffering from certain cancers (for example, some lung and bowel cancer). However, it doesn’t cure the patient and for some cancers, it can actually make them grow even quicker. This is because the cancers quickly find other ways of making the blood vessels grow or the cancer cells themselves just move to the nearest blood vessel. Scientists are trying to find out how cancers do this – they’re incredibly crafty and we think they may use more than one method.