Read the passage and answer the following questions:
Cancer is one of the most dreaded diseases of human beings and is a major cause of death all over the globe. More than a million Indians suffer from cancer and a large number of them die from it annually. The mechanisms that underlie development of cancer or oncogenic transformation of cells, its treatment and control have been some of the most intense areas of research in biology and medicine. In our body, cell growth and differentiation is highly controlled and regulated. In cancer cells, there is breakdown of these regulatory mechanisms. Normal cells show a property called contact inhibition by virtue of which contact with other cells inhibits their uncontrolled growth. Cancer cells appears to have lost this property. As a result of this, cancerous cells just continue to divide giving rise to masses of cells called tumors.

What is metastasis?

Ability of cells to grow rapidly, invading and damaging the surrounding normal tissues.

The correct answer is Option (3)- Ability of cells to grow rapidly, invading and damaging the surrounding normal tissues.

Among the given options, the third statement best describes metastasis: "Ability of cells to grow rapidly, invading and damaging the surrounding normal tissues."

Tumors are of two types: benign and malignant.

Benign tumors normally remain confined to their original location and do not spread to other parts of the body and cause little damage.

The malignant tumors, on the other hand are a mass of proliferating cells called neoplastic or tumor cells. These cells grow very rapidly, invading and damaging the surrounding normal tissues. As these cells actively divide and grow they also starve the normal cells by competing for vital nutrients. Cells sloughed from such tumors reach distant sites through blood, and wherever they get lodged in the body, they start a new tumor there. This property called metastasis is the most feared property of malignant tumors.