06/01/2015
General questions and answers about cancer
⏩ What is cancer?
The body is made up of trillions of living cells. Normal body cells grow, divide into new cells, and die in an orderly way. During the early years of a person’s life, normal cells
divide faster to allow the person to grow. After the person becomes an adult, most cells divide only to replace worn-out or dying cells or to repair injuries.
Cancer starts when cells in a part of the body start to grow out of control. There are many kinds of cancer, but they all start because of out-of-control growth of abnormal cells.
Cancer cell growth is different from normal cell growth. Instead of dying, cancer cells continue to grow and form new, abnormal cells. Cancer cells can also invade (grow into)
other tissues, something that normal cells can’t do. Growing out of control and invading other tissues are what makes a cell a cancer cell.
Cells become cancer cells because of damage to DNA. DNA is in every cell and directs all its actions. In a normal cell, when DNA gets damaged the cell either repairs the damage or dies.
In cancer cells, the damaged DNA is not repaired, but the cell doesn’t die like it should. Instead, this cell goes on making new cells that the body doesn’t need.
These new cells will all have the same damaged DNA as the first cell does.
People can inherit damaged DNA, but most DNA damage is caused by mistakes that happen while the normal cell is reproducing or by something in our environment.
In most cases, no clear cause is found.
Cancer cells often form a tumor. But some cancers, like leukemias, rarely form tumors.
Instead, these cancer cells involve the blood and blood-forming organs and circulate
through other tissues where they grow.
Cancer cells often travel to other parts of the body, where they begin to grow and form new tumors that replace normal tissue. This process is called metastasis (meh-tas-tuh-sis).
It happens when the cancer cells get into the bloodstream or lymph vessels of our body.
No matter where a cancer may spread, it’s always named for the place where it started.
For example, breast cancer that has spread to the liver is still called breast cancer, not Liver cancer.
Likewise, prostate cancer that has spread to the bone is metastatic prostate cancer, not bone cancer.
Different types of cancer can behave very differently. For example, lung cancer and colon cancer are very different diseases. They grow at different rates and respond to
different treatments. That’s why people with cancer need treatment that’s aimed at their kind of cancer.
Not all tumors are cancer. Tumors that aren’t cancer are called benign (be-nine). Benign tumors can cause problems – they can grow very large and press on healthy organs and
tissues. But they can’t grow into (invade) other tissues. Because they can’t invade, they also can’t spread to other parts of the body (metastasize).
These tumors are almost never Life threatening.
Regards
SHIVENDRA SINGH
DIRECTOR
RECENT FOUNDATION
A NGO TO EDUCATE PEOPLE...
