Oxidative stress may cause metastatic disease in patients with colorectal cancer

Despite surgical treatment of stage II colorectal cancer many patients will experience relapse. Inflammatory and immunologic reactions created due to the surgical stress response result in the production of reactive oxygen species. Oxidative stress in turn, may result in the stimulation of cancer cells that have not been cleared by the immune system to metastasize. In this paper we present an overview of studies where oxidative stress in relation to surgery has been linked to the development of metastatic disease.