of extracellular matrix necessary to form new blood vessels increases the odds of metastasis. (see inflammation in cancer) criticisms an article in nature reviews cancer in 2010 pointed out that five of the 'hallmarks' were also characteristic of benign tumours. the only hallmark of malignant disease was its ability to invade and metastasize. an article in the journal of biosciences in 2013 argued that original data for most of these hallmarks is lacking. it argued that cancer is a tissue-level disease and these cellular-level hallmarks are misleading.