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Dormancy is an elusive and deadly component of cancers. Rare, therapy resistant cells lay dormant for decades and when reactivated cause disease progression and relapse. Eradicating dormant cancer cells is key to curing cancers yet is an unrealized goal. The skeleton remains a common location for dissemination and dormancy, yet our understanding of the cellular and molecular pathways that control dormant cancer cells in the the skeleton is limited. We hypothesized that dormant cancer cells occupy a common niche in the skeleton and this supports long-term dormancy. To test this we developed technology to identify and analyse dormant cancers cells from different cancer types and the compartment in the skeleton in which they reside. Membrane label retention was able to distinguish dormant cancer cells from reactivated cancer cells. Intravital imaging showed that dormant cancer cells were found …