Mar 20, 2011 Posted Under: Cancer

Your Basic Knowledge on Cancer

What is Cancer

Cancer is any malignant growth caused by abnormal and uncontrolled cell division. It is a class of diseases characterized by out-of-control cell growth. There are many different types of cancer; each is classified by the type of cell that is initially affected. Cancer is harmful to the body when damaged cells divide uncontrollably to form lumps of tissue called tumors, which can grow and with the digestive, nervous, and circulatory systems, and they can release hormones alter body function. When a tumor spreads to other parts of the body and grows and destroying other healthy tissues, it is said to have metastasized, which results a serious condition

Classification of Cancer

Cancer is classified as below categories.

  • Carcinomas are cancers by cells that cover internal and external parts of the body include lung, breast, and colon cancer.
  • Sarcomas are characterized by cells that are located in bones, cartilage, fat, connective tissue, muscles, and other supportive tissues.
  • Lymphomas are cancers which begin in the lymph nodes and immune system tissues.
  • Leukemia’s are cancers which start in the bone marrow and often accumulate in the bloodstream
  • Adenomas are cancers arise in the thyroid, the pituitary gland, the adrenal gland, and other glandular tissues.

Cancers are often referred by terms contain a prefix related to the cell type, cancer originated and a suffix such as sarcoma, carcinoma.

General symptoms of Cancer

Cancer is a disease that can give many symptoms or signs of an entirely different type of illness. Cancer cells will develop in organs where they will not manifest themselves so that; a tumor often doesn’t produce symptoms. Some cancer types create symptoms as below.

Excess in Fatigue changes occur in bowel movements, Pain with cancer, which are usually cancers of the bones, colon, and ovary. Unexpected loss of weight, chronic indigestion is a symptom of tumors in the stomach. Any symptom should not be ignored and for further check up, it is recommended that to see a physician.

How Cancer Diagnosed

Early detection of cancer can improve the odds of successful treatment. To diagnose cancer, physicians use information from symptoms and several other procedures.

Doctors conduct an endoscope, which is a procedure that uses a small tube with a camera and light at one end, to look for abnormalities inside the body imaging techniques means, X-rays, CT scans, MRI scans, PET scans, and ultrasound scans are used regularly to detect where the tumor is located and what organs will be affected by it. Absolute way to diagnose cancer is extracting cancer cells and looking at them under a microscope is the only, which is called a biopsy. To diagnose cancer, molecular diagnostics, biopsies, and imaging techniques are all used together.

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