Putting Warburg to work: how imaging of tumour acidosis could help predict metastatic potential in breast cancer

Solid tumours are often highly acidic compared to normal tissue, and tumour extracellular acidosis contributes to multiple aspects of cancer progression. Now, Anemone et al. in this issue of the British Journal of Cancer provide in vivo evidence that the degree to which various breast cancer cell lines acidify their environment correlates with their ability to metastasise to the lungs. This indicates that measurements of tumour extracellular acidosis have the potential to become a clinical tool for assessing the risk of metastasis.

Automated summary

This study suggests that the degree of acidification of the environment by breast cancer cell lines is correlated with their metastatic potential to the lungs, indicating that measuring tumor extracellular acidosis could be a clinical tool for assessing metastasis risk.