Migrastatics: an overview of the current scenario and future cancer treatments

Metastasis is the main cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Thus, significant efforts have been directed towards inhibiting metastasis to avoid regrowth or relapse after cytostatic and/or cytotoxic cancer treatments. Drugs targeting cell-invasiveness are known as migrastatics and primarily target the cytoskeleton to impair cell motility and/or invasive mechanisms. However, the cytoskeleton is essential to perform many fundamental processes, including cell division. Consequently, migrastatics often prompt high toxicity, among other serious side effects, which have prevented their clinical use to this date. In this review, we present the current migrastatics scenario, including their main limitations, and discuss proposed alternatives.