Armed with new findings that show cancer cells use tentacle-like invadopodia to get a foothold in a new part of the body, researchers are looking for ways to keep cancer immobile.

Before cancer cells wander away from their original site to other parts of the body, the cells develop “feet” called invadopodia, new research shows. If doctors can cut cancer cells off at the knees, they may be able to stop the disease from spreading.

In a study recently published in Cell Reports, researchers watched with high-resolution time-lapse imaging as dyed cancer cells tried to escape from the bloodstream of chicken embryos and mice to establish themselves in a new location. That process, called metastasis, is why a breast cancer patient may later find herself with cancer in her bones, for example.

“We started to see invadopodia being formed. They form these tentacle-like fingers,” said senior study author John Lewis, an oncologist at the University of Alberta in Canada.

The researchers watched as the tentacles fumbled around to find a spot between two blood vessel cells. The tiny tentacles then reached out and hauled the cancer cell out of the blood vessel.

“Being in a blood vessel is a horrible environment for cancer cells — there’s all kinds of immune activity. To survive they need to get out quickly,” Lewis said.

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John Condeelis, a microbiologist at the Albert Einstein Cancer Center at Yeshiva University who has published studies on invadopodia, said the same “doorway” forms between the cancer cell and the blood vessel as it enters and as it leaves.

“The door swings both ways and the cells can cross in or out of the vessel,” he said.