You've probably heard about the disease called Cancer. Each year, tens of millions of people are diagnosed with cancer around the world. Unfortunately, maybe someone you know deals with it. You have probably heard that is dangerous, or even deadly. But how much do you know about this disease? Do you know what exactly is cancer? How dangerous is it? Can be cured? Let's find out in this lesson.
In this lesson, we are going to learn about the disease called CANCER, and we are going to find out the following:
Cancer is a disease in which some of the body's cells grow uncontrollably and spread to other parts of the body. The human body is made up of trillions of cells, and cancer can start almost anywhere. Throughout our lives, healthy cells in our bodies divide and replace themselves in a controlled fashion. If the body's normal control mechanism stops working, cancer may develop. Some of the old cells do not die and instead grow out of control. The result is forming new, abnormal cells, which may form a tissue mass, called a tumor.
A tumor can be cancerous or benign.
A cancerous tumor is malignant, which is a word that describes that cancer can grow and spread to other parts of the body. This process is known as metastasis. In metastasis, cancer cells break away from the original tumor, travel, and form a new tumor in other tissues or organs of the body.
Cancers can spread through tissue, the lymph system, or through the bloodstream.
These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Benign tumors are noncancerous growths in the body.
But, some cancers do not form "classic" solid tumors. That is the case with leukemia, which is a blood "liquid" tumor.
Cancer isn't a single disease. Cancers comprise a large family of diseases that involve abnormal cell growth.
Cancer is not infectious. Cancer cells from someone with cancer can not live in the body of another healthy person, so we can not “catch” cancer from someone else.
There are five main categories of cancer:
Carcinomas are the most commonly diagnosed cancers, originate in the skin, lungs, breasts, pancreas, and other organs and glands. Carcinomas may spread to other parts of the body, or be confined to the primary location.
A sarcoma is a type of cancer that starts in tissues like bone or muscle. Bone and soft tissue sarcomas are the main types of sarcoma. Soft tissue sarcomas can develop in soft tissues like fat, muscle, nerves, fibrous tissues, blood vessels, or deep skin tissues. They can be found in any part of the body.
Lymphoma is cancer that begins in lymphocytes, the infection-fighting cells of the immune system. These cells are in the lymph nodes, spleen, thymus, bone marrow, and other parts of the body. In lymphoma, lymphocytes change and grow out of control.
In most instances, CNS tumors start in the normal cells of the brain and spinal cord called "neurons" and "glia."
These are potential cancer symptoms:
Each of these signs or symptoms might indicate many conditions. Most signs and symptoms are not caused by cancer but can be caused by other conditions. If you have any signs and symptoms that don't go away or get worse, you should see a doctor who can find out what’s causing them. If cancer is not the cause, a doctor can help figure out what the cause is and treat it, if needed.
To find out the real reason that is causing the signs and symptoms, the doctor usually starts by asking about personal and family medical history. After this, physical exams are performed. After the physical exams, laboratory tests, scans, or other tests or procedures may be performed.
If doctors find something suspicious during a physical exam or other tests, they may require a biopsy. A biopsy is a sample of tissue taken from the body to examine it more closely to determine a presence or extent of a disease.
A biopsy is the main way doctors diagnose most types of cancer. Other tests can suggest that cancer is present, but only a biopsy can make a diagnosis.
Staging is a way to describe cancer. Cancer's stage tells where a cancer is located and its size, how far it has grown into nearby tissues.
Staging of cancer can be done at different times in a person's medical care, and include:
What is the TNM staging system?
This is the staging system that doctors use to classify cancer. The TNM system uses letters and numbers to:
After gathering all info, the information collected is used to give a cancer stage, specific to you. Most types of cancer have four stages:
Other factors used in cancer staging are:
Staging helps doctors in planning the best cancer treatment. But it can also help in understanding whether cancer will come back or spread after the original treatment, it can help forecast the prognosis, prognosis chances of recovery, etc. Doctors that treat cancer and provide medical care for a person diagnosed with cancer are called oncologists.
After the confirmation of cancer and when the staging is done, a plan for the best possible treatment will be made by oncologists. Cancer treatment options include:
The most common risk factors for cancer include aging, tobacco, sun exposure, radiation exposure, chemicals, and other substances, some viruses and bacteria, certain hormones, family history of cancer, alcohol, poor diet, lack of physical activity, or being overweight. The tendency to develop some types of cancer is believed to be inherited.
Knowing all of this will lead us to ask: Can we prevent cancer?
Experts say that choosing to live a healthy lifestyle can have a huge benefit for our overall health, and also can contribute to preventing cancers. It is said that one in three cancers can be prevented and the number of cancer deaths could be reduced significantly by choosing a cancer-smart lifestyle. So healthy habits should be our choice. That would be, to eat healthy food, avoid tobacco and alcohol, regular exercise, have less stress, maintain a healthy weight, protect from the sun. Also, having cancer screening tests at regular intervals is the single best way to protect against cancer.
