Where does metastasis collide?

The spread of cancer cells from a first, primary tumour to form new, secondary tumours at distant organs: cells detach, invade nearby tissue, enter the blood or lymph, survive the journey, and colonise a receptive site, a sequence often called the metastatic cascade. Paget's 1889 The distribution of secondary growths in cancer of the breast proposed the 'seed and soil' idea that a travelling cell grows only where the local tissue suits it, and Fidler's 2003 The pathogenesis of cancer metastasis revisited and confirmed that principle with modern biology. Metastasis is the main reason cancer kills. The referent is a physical migration of living cells inside a body, counted in tumours and cells, not a figure of speech or a theory of culture.[1][2]

Unit

One secondary tumour, or one migrating cancer cell, seeding a distant organ

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Detected by imaging, biopsy, and pathology, and quantified by the number and site of secondary tumours and by circulating tumour cells

In classical and Renaissance rhetoric, metastasis is a named figure of speech: a quick passing from one point to another, and, in argument, the move of turning a charge or accusation back onto the opponent who made it. Lanham's 1991 A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms records both uses, noting that the Latin handbooks call the retort form transmotio. The figure is a technique of arrangement and reply, catalogued alongside other tropes for teaching and analysis. The referent is a manoeuvre in discourse, judged by its effect on an audience, and it has nothing to do with cells spreading in a body or with a theorist's diagnosis of culture.[3]

Unit

One shift or one retort within a speech or written argument

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Identified by close reading and classified against the catalogues of figures in rhetorical handbooks

In Baudrillard's social theory, metastasis names the uncontrolled, cancer-like proliferation of images, information, and forms once all limits and reference points dissolve. His 1993 The Transparency of Evil argued that after everything has been liberated, culture enters a metastatic state in which the same signs multiply and spread without direction or meaning, the way a tumour grows with no regard for the body. He borrows the diseased image on purpose, but applies it to a condition of society and media, not to tissue. The referent is a diagnosis of culture, argued in essays, and it is neither a biological process nor a catalogued figure of speech.[4]

Unit

A cultural condition of runaway, undirected proliferation of signs

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Argued interpretively through cultural critique, and not quantified