Study shows how cancer 'steals' blood vessels

Cancers can resist treatment by ‘stealing’ blood vessels from nearby tissues, researchers have found.

Findings from a new study showed tumors can become resistant to drugs over time by learning to take normal blood vessels from surrounding tissue – a process that researchers call vessel co-option. The process of new blood vessel growth – angiogenesis – is important for cancers to grow, and several anti-angiogenic drugs have been developed to combat it.

But cancers often become resistant to these drugs through mechanisms which have been poorly understood.