What is it?
Normally, the human body forms new cells as you need them, replacing old cells that die, but sometimes this process can go wrong. New cells grow even when they aren’t needed, and old cells stay present even when they should have died. These extra cells can form a mass called a tumor which can be either benign or malignant. Benign tumors are not cancerous: they can often be removed from the body and the cells from the benign tumor don’t spread to other parts of the body. However, malignant tumors are cancerous and are made up of cells that grow out of control. Cells in these tumours can invade nearby tissues and spread to other parts of the body.
Types of cancer
Cancer is not just one disease but many diseases. There are more than 100 different types of cancer including breast cancer, skin cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, and lymphoma. Most cancers are named for where they start. For example, lung cancer starts in the lung, and breast cancer starts in the breast. The spread of cancer from one part of the body to another is called metastasis.
Symptoms and Treatment
Symptoms and treatment depend on the cancer type and how advanced it is. Treatment plans may include surgery, radiation and/or chemotherapy, hormone therapy, immunotherapy and stem cell transplantation.
Symptoms of cancer include:
- lump in breast
- coughing (more than three weeks)
- chest pain
- changes in bowl habits (blood in still, persistent bloating, diarrhoea or constipation for no obvious reason etc.)
- blood in urine, between periods, when you cough or vomit
- irregular shaped moles (more than one colour, bigger than 7mm diameter etc.)
- unexplained weight loss
- 356,860 new cases of cancer in 2014, UK
- 163,444 deaths from cancer in 2014, UK – this is more than 450 deaths everyday
- 50% of patients survive cancer for 10 or more years (2010-11, England and Wales)
- Out of all cancer cases in the UK, 42% are preventable
- Every four minutes, someone in the UK dies from cancer
- Cancer survival is higher in women than men
- 1 in 2 people in the UK born after 1960 will be diagnosed with some form of cancer during their lifetime
- Smoking is the largest preventable cause of cancer each year in the UK
- September 8, 2009 – Proton Therapy for Cancer is discovered
- March 22, 2011 – Some male survivors of childhood cancer who were thought to be sterile are able to conceive children due to new surgical procedures
- April 19, 2011 – Scientists explore ways to use chemicals produced by animals, plants and microbes to find a new drug to treat cancer
- January 19, 2012 – clinical trial shows that using chemotherapy alongside radiation therapy provides a near doubling of survival time in patients with a certain type of brain tumor
- March 15, 2012 – genetically engineered T cells are being studied for the treatment of a variety of cancers
- June 24, 2013 – Drugs that block the MEK protein have shown promise in several cancers.
- December 9, 2013 – modified T cells are effective in treating blood-borne cancers
- December 7, 2015 – some cancer treatments damage the hart, so scientists and researchers are working to find ways to prevent and manage this
- June 17, 2016 – early-stage cancer trials support the use of immunotherapy and precision as effective treatment for cancer
- November 22, 2016 – scientists design a machine to measure the mass of a single cancer cell and predict how that cell will respond to drug treatment
It is a known fact that cancer is one of the leading causes of disease and deaths world wide, and whats worse, the number of cancer cases are expected to rise by approximately 70% over the next 20 years. Although cancer has not been overcome yet, I am sure that with the ever-growing discoveries and new techniques to combat it we will find a cure to cancer very soon. Only recently it has been proposed that it is possible to produce new drugs and therapies that will transform the treatment of metastatic cancers (when the cancerous cells escape the primary tumour and migrate through the blood to form secondary tumours in other parts of the body). This discovery could prove to be revolutionary as most deaths to cancer are due to metastasis and being able to stop them from migrating will not only reduce the problemof secondary tumours forming but also save many lives.
Thank you for reading my blog, I hope you have found the information provided interesting and that your understanding of cancer is hopefully a bit clearer. If you have any questions or any comments about cancer please write them down below!