How does secondary brain cancer get into the brain?!
Question: Can it cross the blood brain barrier? does it enter through the lymph?
Answers: Can it cross the blood brain barrier? does it enter through the lymph?
Secondary brain cancer, also called a metastatic brain tumor, is the spread of a malignant cancer from another part of the body to the brain.
This can occur in different ways but the most common by far is by blood-borne transport. If a cancer is able to metastasize, the cells invade the bloodstream and then have to get out of the blood into another tissue, in this case the brain. Yes, they can cross he blood brain barrier. They barrier, while it sounds all powerful and like a physical barrier, is really more of a chemical barrier that regulates what compounds get into and out of the brain. For invasive cells like cancer, crossing that barrier is not that difficult.
Some tumors are considered secondary brain cancer if they get to the brain from direct extension from an adjacent area. For example, some cancers that originate in the nasal passages or other parts of the head and neck can grow upwards and eventually invade the brain as well. This is not a metastasis per se, really just direct invasion from an adjacent structure.
Finally, spread of tumors to the brain itself through lymphatics is unlikely, although it can account for spread to tissues near the brain. There are no true lymph vessels in the brain tissue itself. So a metastatic brain tumor which is growing within the brain itself likely came from blood-borne spread, not the lymph.
I hope this helps!
I think any health practitioner will really hope their patient CA does not reach the lymph nodes. That is because it is a good vehicle to metastasis of CA to the major organs including the brain.
certain types of cancer spread through the blood stream.
Generally through blood circulation.
Lymph system.