Learning about, and Preventing Cancer

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One half of men and one third of women will get cancer in their lifetime. ½ million people are going to die this year, that’s more than 1,500 people per day! One in eight deaths in the world is due to cancer. Cancer causes more deaths than AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined. Cancer is a disease that’s preventable, curable, and deadly. Cancer is a disease when abnormal cells divide without control and invade other tissues in the body. Normal cells divide in a regulated way to generate new cells that are needed to keep the body healthy. Cancer cells are when the normal cell division process goes awry. When this happens cells don’t die like they’re supposed to, and new cells are produced when the body doesn’t need them. When cancer cells form a lump of tissue it’s called a tumor. There are two types of tumors, malignant, and benign. A benign tumor isn’t cancerous, and can often be removed, and in most cases, they don’t come back. Benign tumors do not spread to other parts of the body like malignant tumors. Malignant tumors are cancerous. The cells within the malignant tumor spread from one part of the body to another and also invade nearby tissue which is called metastasis. Cancers are classified by the area in the body in which it originates. It is also measured by what stage the cancer is in. Staging is based on the size of the original tumor and whether it has spread to any other parts of the body. Staging helps doctors plan treatments, estimate prognosis, and find out what treatment would work the most effectively. More staging elements would be the number of tumors, whether or not the cancer has spread to nearby lymph nodes, tumor grade (how closely cancer cells and tissue simulate normal cells and tissue.) Doctors u... ... middle of paper ... ...2 new cells. Cancer cells are dividing more often than normal cells. That makes them more likely to be killed by the chemotherapy. Treatments are working to cure cancer. You are twice as likely to survive cancer today compared to 40 years ago. Cancer is a condition in the body when there is uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells that evolve into tumors. Fatty food, smoking, and drinking all affect the chances of developing cancer. Treatments for cancer include, but are not limited to, Surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. Anyone can become a victim of cancer, but we can decrease our chances of getting cancer by being more informed on the disease and how to prevent it. Works Cited Cancer Research UK: The UK’s Leading Cancer Charity.” Cancer Research UK. N.p.,n.d. Web Jan 2014 “National Cancer Institute.” Comprehensive Cancer Information N.p.,n.d. Web 22 Jan. 2014

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