Basic Cancer Overview
My approach here will be to build slowly. So, we’ll start off with a very basic cancer overview. As we delve more deeply, you’ll become very well-versed in the complexities of the process.
Doctor, could you give me a brief overview of what cancer is?
Everybody on the planet has heard of cancer and knows that's it's a potentially deadly foe.
But, cancers are not all the same. Some are much easier to treat than others so that it’s impossible to generalize. But, there are common issues that need to be addressed in all cancers.
Cancer can be defined as a growth of abnormal cells that can spread throughout the body and eventually cause death by taking over the function of normal cells.
When it comes to an overview of cancer there are a number of important issues to understand.
What are some of these issues?
A critical issue is how far in the body the cancer has spread from its starting point.
All cancers start in one particular location. As the cancer progresses the cancer may continue to grow and may actually push beyond the boundaries of the organ that it originated in. For example, colon cancer starts off in the colon but may push through the wall of the colon into the surrounding tissues.
Similarly, prostate cancer starts in the prostate but with time may spread beyond the wall of the prostate.
Furthermore, many cancer cells are also able to get into blood vessels and other vessels called lymphatic channels and can then spread far beyond the site of origin. This explains how lung cancers can spread to the brain and how prostate cancers can spread to the back.
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