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Cancer cells are formed from a healthy cell with a complex process called transformation.
The first step in the process is the initiation, in which a change in the cell's genetic material (DNA and sometimes on the structure of chromosomes) trigger the cell become cancerous. Changes in the cell's genetic material can occur spontaneously or be brought by means of which cause cancer (carcinogens). Carcinogens including some chemicals, tobacco, viruses, radiation, and sunlight. Nevertheless, not all the cell can make it more vulnerable. Even chronic wounds irritation can make the cells more susceptible to carcinogens.
The second and final stage in the development of cancer is called promotion. Compounds that cause campaign called the promoter. Promoters may be substances in the environment or...
Cancer Surgery
Surgery is a form of traditional medicine in cancer. It is most effective to eliminate various types of cancer before it spreads to lymph nodes or other distant places (metastasized). Surgery may be used alone or combined with other treatments, such as radiation therapy and chemotherapy. If the cancer has not spread, surgery can cure people. Even so, this may not always be sure before surgery or whether the cancer has not spread. If so, the person is likely at high risk for recurrent cancer and may require chemotherapy or radiation after surgery to prevent recurrence.
Surgery is not the primary treatment when cancer has spread. However, surgery is sometimes used to reduce the size of tumor (a procedure called debulking), so radiation therapy and chemotherapy may be more effective, or to relieve...
Food And Cancer
Many studies have attempted whether certain foods increase or decrease a person's risk for cancer. Unfortunately, different studies sometime have conflicting result, so it is difficult to determine the effect of food food supplements on cancer risk. Some foods and supplements have been studies more than others, and American cancer charity have been trying to conclude.
Antioxidants : Vitamin C, Vitamin E and beta carotene (Vitamin A), is part of a balanced diet. However, using supplements containing these antioxidants reduce cancer risk is unknown. There is some evidence that taking supplements of beta carotene in high doses may increase the risk of certain types of cancer.
Bioengineered foods : ingredients from different plants or from certain microorganisms added to the ingredients in some...
Radiation Therapy and Side Effects
Radiation is powerful form of energy generated by radioactive materials, such as cobalt, or by special equipment, such as a atomic particle accelerator (linear).
Radiation primarily kill cells that divide rapidly and cells difficult to repair their DNA (nuclear material). Cancer cells divide more frequently than normal cells and often unable to repair the damage caused by radiation. Therefore, cancer cells are more likely to be killed by radiation than normal cells. Even so, cancer cells vary in how easy it is to be killed by radiation, some cells are very resistant and can not be effectively treated with radiation.
Types Radiation Therapy
In its common, external beam radiation therapy using gamma radiation generated by a linear accelerator. Rarely, radation of light electrons and protons...
Types of Cancer
Tissue cancer (malignancies) can occur in the blood forming tissue (leukemia and Lymphoma) and the tumor 'solid', often categorized as cancer. Cancer can be either carcinomas or sarcomas.
Leukemia and lymphoma are cancers of blood and blood forming tissues. Rather than forming a lump, they can remain as a separate cancer cells. Therefore, they often harm the body with loss of normal blood cells from bone marrow and peripheral blood flow, so the normal function of cells are gradually replaced by cancer cells.
Carcinomas are cancers of epithelial cells, cells that protect the surface of the body, producing hormones, and make the gland. Example of carcinomas are skin cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer, stomach cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, and cancer of the thyroid gland. His trademark,...
Combination Treatment of Cancer Therapy
For some cancers, the best treatment is a combination of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Surgery or radiation to treat cancer , whose land is limited, while chemotherapy kills cancers cells that are beyond the reach of surgery or radiation.
Sometimes radiation or chemotherapy before surgery, to reduce tumor size, or after surgery to destroy remaining cancer cells.
Chemotherapy combined with surgery, would improve the change of life expectancy in patients with colon cancer, breast or bladder that has spread to regional lymph nodes. Surgery and chemotherapy can sometimes cure ovarian cancer that has spread.
Rectal cancer have been successfully treated with chemotherapy and radiation therapy. In the colon cancer that has spread, chemotherapy given after surgery can prolong disease-free...
Cancer Therapy with Chemotherapy
Not yet discovered the idea cure for cancer, which destroys cancer cells without injuring normal cells. Nevertheless, many patients can be treated with anticancer drugs ( chemotherapy) and some experience of healing. All this time the side effects of chemotherapy can be minimized.
Anticancer drugs are grouped into several categories :Alkylating agents
Antimetabolite
Plant alkaloids
Antitumor antibiotic
Enzyme
Hormone
Biological response modifiers
2 or more drugs are often used as a combination. Reason for the combination therapy is to use drugs that work on different parts of the process of cell metabolism, thereby increasing the possibility of increasing the number of cancer cells are destroyed. In addition, the harmful side effects from chemotherapy can be reduce if the drug with a different...
Cancer Treatment with Radiation Therapy
Radiation to destroy cells that divide rapidly. But radiation can also damage normal tissue, especially tissue where cells normally reproduce rapidly, skin, hair roots, the intestinal lining, ovaries, testicles and bone marrow. By accurately determining the target irradiation will protect normal cells as much as possible.
Cells that have an adequate supply of oxygen is more easily damaged by radiation. The cells are near the center of a large tumor often has a poor blood supply and oxygen levels are low. If the tumor shrank, the remaining cells will get improved blood supply, so it more sensitive to subsequent radiation dose.
The division into a series of doses of radiation therapy in a longer time, will increase the lethal effect against tumor cells and reduce the toxic effects on normal...
New Cancer Treatment
Newer approaches in treating cancer is dose intense chemotherapy, the use of drugs in very high doses.
This therapy is used to tumor relapse even give a good response to initial chemotherapy. These tumors have shown sensitivity to the drug, strategy does is increase the dose obviously to kill more cancer cells, thereby extending the life expectancy of sufferers.
But the intense doses of chemotherapy can cause fatal injury to the bone marrow. Therefore, this therapy is usually combined with salvage therapy, in which the bone marrow removed prior to chemotherapy. After treatment, bone marrow is returned to the patient. Although still in the research, this treatment was performed on breast cancer, lymphoma, Hodgkin's diseases and myeloma.
Bone marrow transplant from a donor with a matching...
Side effects of Cancer Treatment
Almost every patient who received radiation therapy or chemotherapy have certain side effects, most often in the form of nausea or vomiting and decreased white blood cell count.
Patients who receive chemotherapy often experience hair loss. Reducing the side effects is an important aspect of treatment.
Nausea and vomiting
Nausea and vomiting can usually be prevented or reduced with medication (anti-emetic). Nausea can be reduced by reducing the frequency of snack and avoid high-fiber foods that produce gas or very hot or very cold.
Decrease in white blood cell count
Sitopenia is a state where there is a deficiency of one or several types of blood cells. This can occur during cancer treatment.
For example patients may experience :Anemia (red blood cell count is low)
Neutropenia or leukopenia...
Cancer Treatment
Response to Treatment
At time of treatment, patients assessed the situation to see the response to treatment of cancer.
The most successful treatment led to healing. Healing is defined as complete remission, in which all the evidence no longer fond cancer. The experts sometimes define recovery as the life expectancy of 5-10 years free of disease, where cancer does not disappear as a whole and no recurrence within a specified period, 5-10 years.
At the response incomplete, the size of 1 or more tumors reduce by more than half. These responses can reduce symptoms and prolong life expectancy, although eventually tha cancer will grow back.
Treatment failure does not cause a response.
Sometimes the cancer is disappearing as a whole, but then back again. the interval between these two states are...
Emergency CANCER
Which belong to the emergency cancer are : Cardiac tamponade
Pleural effusion
Superior vena cava syndrome
Emphasis spine syndrome
Hipercalemic syndrome
Cardiac Tamponade
Is a collection of fluid in the pericardium (sack pericardium, pericardial pouch), which led to en emphasis on the hearth and hearth pumping ability.
The collection of fluid occurs when the cancer infiltrated the pericardium and cause irritation. Cancer is most likely to infiltrate into the pericardium is lung cancer, breast and lymphoma.
Sudden cardiac tamponade occurs when fluid collect so much so that the heart can not beat normally. Before the onset of tamponade, patients usually feel vague pain or pressure in the chest, which will get worse when lying down and will get better when sitting upright.
Patients experiencing...
Complications of Cancer
Paraneoplastic Syndrome
Paraneoplastic syndrome is a collection of symptoms that are not caused by the tumor itself, but by substances produced by cancer.
Some substances that can be produced by the tumor is hormone, sitokinese and various other proteins. These substances affect the organ or tissue through its chemical effect.
Exactly how cancer on the far side is not fully understood. Some cancers release substances into the bloodstream that damage the remote network through an autoimmune reaction. Other cancers release substances that directly affect the functioning of different organs or tissue damage.
It could happen that low blood sugar, diarrhea and high blood pressure. Often on the nervous system.
Some symptoms can be treated directly, but to treat the syndrome paraneoplastik...
Stadium Determining Cancer
If the cancer is found, examination staging of cancer helps the doctor in planning appropriate treatment and determine prognosis.Scan (for example, liver or bone scan)
Coloration
CT (Computed Tomography) or MRI (Magnetic Resonance Image)
Mediastinoskopi
Bone marrow biopsy
Sometimes surgery is necessary to determine the stage of cancer. For example, a laparotomy (abdominal surgery) allows the surgeon to remove or treat colon cancer while determining the spread of cancer to nearby lymph nodes. Analysis of lymph nodes are remove from the axilla at the time of the mastectomy, help determine how far breast cancer has spread and whether the necessary post-surgical therapy. Splenectomy done to remove the spleen and determine the stage of Hodgkin's disease.
Scanning ultrasound is non-invasive...
Cancer Diagnosis
Since this type of cancer and its treatment varies, the diagnosis of cancer and determine its type is very important. This almost always requires a sampling of cancer tissue for examination under a microscope. A number of special test on sample of cancer tissue may be necessary to describe more about the cancer was found.
Where this type of cancer is know, will help doctors in determining the examination will be done, because every cancer tends to follow a certain pattern of growth and spread.
In 7% of patient , examinations carried out to find the matastasis (spread) before the origin of cancer were observed. Sometime the original cancer could not be found.
Doctors can be usually determine the type of primary tumor by performing of a metastatic cancer and examined under a microscope....
Cancer Filtering
Cancer screening tests intended to determine the likelihood of cancer. This test can reduce the number of deaths from cancer, because if cancer is found in its earliest stages, usually can be treated before it spreads any further.
Screening test is uncertain, the result confirmed or denied by the examination and further tests.
Although screening test can save someone's life but it is expensive and sometimes cause psychic or psychical reactions. Usually, screening test give a large number of false positive result, which allegedly occurred when in fact no cancer. Screening test could also give false negative result, where no evidence of a cancer when the cancer has occurred.
False positive results could cause undue psychological stress and can lead to doing other tests are expensive and dangerous....
Cancers and Immune System
Tumor antigen
Antigen is a foreign material is know and is a target that will be destroyed by the immune system. Antigen found on the surface of all cells, but in normal circumstanes, a person's immune system does not react to the itself.
If a cell becomes malignant, the new antigen ( which is not recognized by the immune system ) appears in the cell surface. The immune system may recognize new antigens, called tumor antigens, as foreign and can transport or destroy cancer cells. Butwell-functioning immune system was not always able to destroy all cancer cells.
Tumor antigens have been found in several types of cancer, malignant melanoma, bone cancer ( osteosarcoma ) and some gastrointestinal cancers. Cancer patients have antibodies against tumor antigens. Antigens immune responses are usually...
Cancer Risk Factors
A set genetic and environmental factors increase the risk of cancer.One important is family history. Some families have a higher risk for certain cancers when compared with other families. For example, the risk for women suffering from breast cancer increased from 1.5 to 3 times if his mother or sister had breast cancer.
Some breast cancer associated with a specific genetic mutation, which was more frequent in some ethnic groups and families. Women with mutations in this gene have a chance of 80-90% for breast cancer and 40-50% for ovarian cancer. Researcher have found that 1% of Ashkenazi Jewish women have this gene mutation.
Other cancers that tend to be inherited in the family is skin cancer and colon cancer.
Chromosomal abnormalities increases the risk of cancer. For example, a person...
Occurrence Cause Cancer
How Cancer Event
Cancer is cells that have lost normal control mechanisms, so that the irregular growth. Cancer can occur from various tissues in various organs. In line with the growth and breeding, cancer cells form a mass of malignant tissue that infiltrate into nearby tissues and can spread (metastasize) throughout the body.
Cancer cells are formed from normal cells in a complex process called transformation, which consists of initiation and promotion stage.
At the initiation stage occurs a change in the genetic material of cells that provoke the cells become malignant. Change in the cell's genetic material is is caused by an agency called carcinogens, which can include chemical, viruses, radiation (irradiation) or sunlight.
But not all cells have the same sensitivity to a carcinogen....