The word cancer is a broad term that encompasses more than 200 kinds of this awful disease.
Each of these types of cancer can have completely different characteristics to other cancers and can be considered unique disease, their causes, their development and their specific treatment.
However, they all have a common denominator: cancer cells acquire the ability to multiply and spread throughout the body without control.
Our body is constituted of a set of cells visible only through the microscope.
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Cell Division
These cells divide regularly and periodically to replace aging or dead already, and maintain the integrity and proper functioning of the various organs.
The process of cell division is regulated by a series of control mechanisms that tell the cell when to divide and when to start static. When cell damage can not be repaired cellular self-destruction occurs which prevents the damage is inherited by daughter cells.
Uncontrolled cell divisionWhen these control mechanisms are disrupted into a cell, it and its descendants initiate an uncontrolled division, which eventually will lead to a tumour or nodule
When cells that constitute the tumour does not possess the ability to invade and destroy other organs, we speak of benign tumours. But when these cells grow uncontrollably besides suffer alterations and acquire new powers to invade surrounding tissues and organs (infiltration), and to move and grow in other parts of the body (metastasis), we speak of malignancy, which is what we call cancer.
Not all cancers appears a nodule. In leukaemia cells grow and invade the bone marrow (which is responsible for the formation of blood cells). Over time, cells and invade out outside the blood and other organs.
The evolution of each cancer is subject to many factors that will interact with each other. These factors vary depending on both the tumour and the patient.
The characteristics of the malignant tumour cells are:
Dysplasia : the regulatory mechanisms that maintain the balance of the cells are unable to control their division, leading to an accumulation of cells. Typically results in a growth or tumour.
Neoplasticcells have variations in shape, size and function. These cells stop working as they should and acquire new properties that configure the malignancy (cancer).
Invasiveness : the cancer can spread through the body, using different routes. The most common are: The local spread . Tumour cells invade neighbouring tissues, infiltrating them. The propagation distance . It occurs when a group of malignant cells from the original tumour shows where generated to move to other parts of the body (metastasis). Fundamentally, they spread through the blood vessels and lymphatic’s. The malignancy of a tumour is determined by the aggressiveness of their cells, giving it a greater or lesser invasiveness.