HOW CANCER STARTS, GROWS AND SPREADS
Table of content
What is cancer?
How cancer starts and grows
How cancer spreads?
Outlook
WHAT IS CANCER?
A disease in which abnormal cells starts to grow uncontrollably and crowds out the normal cells which suppresses their functioning. The most common type of cancer are: Lung cancer, Breast cancer, Colorectal cancer, Prostate Cancer, Skin cancer and Stomach Cancer. Among all these types of cancer, Lung cancer is the most deadliest.
HOW CANCER STARTS AND GROWS
It develops when any problem occurs in the genes which is the basic physical unit of inheritance and they are arranged in long strands in tightly packed DNA called chromosomes. They can also be caused because of some errors in DNA which complicates the process of cell division. Environmental exposure or chemical exposure can also lead to cancerous cells such as chemicals in tobacco smoke, UV rays from the sun and chemicals in tobacco smoke etc.
These uncontrollable growth of cells lives longer than the normal cells live and leads to the accumulation of abnormal cells which causes tumor. Tumors can be of two types which are: Benign Tumors and Malignant Tumors.
· Benign Tumors: Benign tumors are slow-growing and they do not spread to other organs. But, they can be harmful to your body or they can kill the nearby nerve by pressing the nerves. For an example if there is a benign tumor around your optic nerve then it can press the optic nerve and can result into loss of your vision.
· Malignant Tumors: Malignant tumors are the cancerous cells and this tumor can spread beyond the affected area to other organs of the body. This cancer starts from the damage in the DNA of the cell and this DNA damage is called mutation. Mutations occurs when the cell duplicates its DNA prior to cell division and makes mistakes. These damages are usually detected and repaired before the cell can divide itself. But sometime some of them may be ignored and transferred to daughter cells if the mutation is located in one of many genes that controls the cell cycle. It may affect the regulation of cell cycle in the cell carrying in it and makes the cell division faster than it is supposed to. Usually one mutation is not enough to cause cancer but when it makes cell cycle less reliable many more DNA damages or mutations would go unnoticed. Cancer is usually the result of accumulation of many mutations of genes involved in the cell cycle control and DNA repair process. This happens after many rounds of cell division. This is how cancer starts and grows.
HOW CANCER SPREADS
Cancerous cells do not stick together like normal cells, they can move and invade nearby tissues and organs, and this is known as local spread. They may also spread to further away organs by the means of blood or lymph circulation, this is systemic spread. Metastasis is a process of spreading of cancer to other organs and tissues. Cancerous cells from the original tumor or primary cancer break out and may be taken up by blood and lymph vessel and they can squeeze out from the vessel to other tissues and start new tumor growth in new location which will become secondary cancer. While travelling in a blood stream a cancer cell most often stops at the first place where the vessel is getting so narrow where it gets stuck. As blood flow from most organ goes to the capillaries of a lung, this is where the cancer spreads the most. Lungs are indeed the most common site of secondary cancer. Likewise, while travelling in a lymphatic system cancerous cells commonly gets stuck in the nearest lymph nodes where the vessels get narrower, this is the primary reason why surgeons remove nearby lymph nodes while removing tumors.
3MEDS, best anti-cancer medicines provider says that Cancer cells spread by 3 common types of metastasis process: Transcoelomic, Lymphatic and Hematogenous spread.
· Transcoelomic spread: During this spread the malignant cells penetrate the covering surfaces of cavities in our body. These surfaces are known as peritoneal cavity and serve as walls to segment the body cavity. For an example malignant cells in ovarian cancer spread through peritoneum which connects the ovaries to liver resulting in metastasis on the liver surfaces.
· Lymphatic spread: When the cancer invades the lymph nodes and travels the other parts of the body via the lymphatic system. It provides large network to the cancer for spreading and in addition lymphatic vessels empty into the blood circulation allowing the cancerous cells to spread more.
· Hematogenous spread: Cancerous cells invade blood vessels and as there are blood vessels almost everywhere in the body, malignant cells utilize this to reach more distant parts of the body.
OUTLOOK
Millions of cancer cases are found every year worldwide and the mortality rate is also high. But, several treatment, therapies and targeted drugs are been invented which are helping the patients to recover from cancer. Recovery possibilities increases when the cancer is found at its early stage and having a schedules plan and diet for cancer can play the key role in the process of recovery. Always try to have genuine drugs and you can get these very easily at India’s best anti-cancer drugs supplier.