Cancer, which is also known as malignancy or malignant neoplasm, is characterized by the abnormal growth of cells within your body. There are more than 100 different types of cancer, including cancer of the lungs, cancer of the breast, cancer of the skin, cancer of the colon, cancer of the prostate and lymphoma. Symptoms associated with cancer will vary widely based on what type of cancer is present within the body. There are numerous different types of cancer treatments including radiation therapy, chemotherapy, drug therapy and surgery just to name a few. There are also a number of complementary treatments designed for use with cancer, but they should be discussed with your doctor because some complementary treatments are capable of interacting badly with primary cancer treatments.
Cancer is a class of diseases that involves uncontrolled and abnormal growth of a group of cells within your body. This may include uncontrolled growth where the cells are dividing beyond their normal limits, invasion where the cells are intruding on and destroying adjacent tissues and metastasis where the cells spread to over locations within the body where they do not belong, such as the via the blood or the lymph. There malignant properties associated with cancers differentiate them from the benign types of tumors which are limited by themselves and do not do anything to metastasize or invade. Most cancers create a tumor or mass, but there are also cancers that do not, such as leukemia for example. The branch of medicine that is concerned with the study of, diagnosis of, treatment of and prevention of cancers is known as oncology.
Cancer is capable of affecting people of all ages, even babies that have not yet been born. The risk for most different varieties of cancer is going to increase with age, however. Cancer is responsible for causing approximately 13 percent of all deaths in humans. According to a group known as the American Cancer Society, in the year 2007 more than 7.6 million people died from cancer or complications from cancer. Cancer is actually capable of affecting all animals, not just humans.
Nearly all forms of cancers are caused by an abnormality in the genetic material of the cells that have been transformed. These abnormalities may be caused by the effects of carcinogens such as radiation, tobacco smoke, chemicals or infectious agents or other things completely. There are a number of other genetic abnormalities that cause or promote cancer, and some are capable of being randomly acquired through DNA replication errors, while others still are simply inherited. The heritability of cancers are typically affected by complex interactions that occur between the genome of the host and carcinogens. DNA methylation and microRNAs are new aspects of the genetics associated with cancer pathogenesis that are considered to be increasingly important.
