Fig. 1

Depiction of the seed and soil hypothesis. The most commonly bone metastatic cancers are thyroid, lung, breast, renal, prostate, and multiple myeloma. The bone microenvironment can be viewed as the soil and contains multiple entities that impact cancer cell survival and establishment of bone lesions. The metastatic process involves: (A) Primary tumor, (B) Angiogenesis, (C) Local invasion and intravasation, (D) Dissemination via circulation, (E) Extravasation, and (F) Colonization of a metastatic site (bone). Components of the bone microenvironment include: endothelial cells, osteocytes, stromal cells, adipose cells, osteoclasts, osteoblasts, T cells, B cells, and the chemical structure of the bone