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What is Cancer?
Cancer is a disease that develops from the abnormal division of cells. In other words, certain cells begin to grow out of control. There are over 50 types of cancer that affect all part of the body. They all originate, however, from abnormal cell division. Cells are designed to grow, divide, and die in an order. As we grow up, the rate of our cell division is much greater, as we are not yet mature. However, as we become adults our cells divide only for the purpose of replacing our dying cells or to repair some injury. Cells eventually wear out and must be replaced by new healthy cells. Cancer cells, however, do not act like normal healthy cells. Instead of eventually dying out, these cells live longer than normal cells and continue to divide. Abnormal cells are the result of damaged DNA that exists within the cells. Some of this damaged DNA is a result of internal factors and some are the result of external factors. Internal factors include those which have been passed on through heredity. Internal factors are responsible for cancers that exist in a person’s family history. Cancer can also develop because damage occurs in DNA from environment factors, or things in the environment that are unhealthy such as poor diet, smoking, chemicals, etc. Cancerous cells, for most types of cancer, develop into tumors. There are treatments which are moderately to very effective for treating the cancer cells of the location of origin. However, malignant tumors have the ability to spread cancerous cells throughout the body. When this occurs, cancer cells from the original site spread to other organs and continue to divide as they take over the normal cells that reside in the newly infected tissue. This process is called metastasis and makes treatment more difficult. |
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