Cathy Kefer: Questions on cancer
In this Q-and-A, Cathy Kefer, nurse practitioner and instructor at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, provides the answers on common questions about cancer.
What is cancer, how does it start and how does it spread?
Cancer is a group of many related diseases that begin in cells, the body's basic building blocks. To understand cancer, it is helpful to know what happens when normal cells become cancerous.
The body is made up of many types of cells. Normally, cells grow and divide to produce more cells, as they are needed to keep the body healthy.
Sometimes, this orderly process goes wrong. New cells form when the body does not need them, and old cells do not die when they should. These extra cells may form a mass of tissue called a growth or tumor. However, not all tumors are cancerous. Tumors can be benign or malignant.
Benign tumors are not cancer. They can often be removed and, in most cases, they do not come back. Cells in benign tumors do not spread to other parts of the body. Most important, benign tumors are rarely a threat to life.
Malignant tumors are cancer. Cells in malignant tumors are abnormal and divide without control or order. Cancer cells invade and destroy the tissue around them. Cancer cells can also break away from a malignant tumor and enter the bloodstream or lymphatic system, which is how they can spread to other parts of the body.
Blood vessels include a network of arteries, capillaries and veins through which the blood circulates in the body. The lymphatic system carries lymph and white blood cells through lymphatic vessels (thin tubes) to all the tissues of the body.
By moving through the bloodstream or lymphatic system, cancer can spread from the original cancer site to form new tumors in other organs. The spread of cancer is called metastasis. Think of this as the highway system, and think how easy it is to get around this country by taking highways.
The three most common cancers in American women and men are:
Women: Breast, colorectal and lung cancer
Men: Prostate, colorectal and lung cancer
How do cancers differ?
There are over 200 types of cancer. The National Cancer Institute lists several general categories; this list is not all-inclusive:
- Carcinoma: Cancer that begins in the skin or in tissues that line or cover internal organs, such as skin, lung, colon, pancreatic, ovarian cancers, epithelial, squamous and basal cell carcinomas, melanomas, papillomas and adenomas.
- Sarcoma: Cancer that begins in bone, cartilage, fat, muscle, blood vessels or other connective or supportive tissue, such as bone: soft-tissue cancers, osteosarcoma, liposarcoma, angiosarcoma, rhabdosarcoma and fibrosarcoma.
- Leukemia: Cancer that starts in blood-forming tissue, such as the bone marrow, and causes large numbers of abnormal blood cells to be produced and enter the blood stream, such as leukemia, lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL and CLL), myelogenous leukemia (AML and CML), T-cell leukemia and hairy-cell leukemia.
- Lymphoma and myeloma: Cancers that begin in the cells of the immune system, such as lymphoma, T-cell lymphomas, B-cell lymphomas, Hodgkin lymphomas, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and lymphoproliferative lymphomas.
- Central nervous system cancers: Cancers that begin in the tissues of the brain and spinal cord, such as brain and spinal cord tumors, gliomas, meningiomas, pituitary adenomas, primary CNS lymphomas and primitive neuroectodermal tumors.
Not included in the above types listed are metastatic cancers because these cells usually arise from a cell type listed above. The major difference from the above types is that these cells are now present in a tissue from which the cancer cells did not originally develop.
How is it treated?
Cancer treatment can include surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, hormone therapy and biological therapy. These treatments can be given alone or in a number of combinations.
Determination of which treatment is best for you depends on the type and location of the cancer, whether the disease has spread, the patient's age and general health and other factors.
Because treatment for cancer can also damage healthy cells and tissues, it often causes side effects. Some patients may worry that the side effects of treatment are worse than the disease.
However, patients and doctors generally discuss the treatment options, weighing the likely benefits of killing cancer cells and the risks of possible side effects. Doctors can suggest ways to reduce or eliminate problems that may occur during and after treatment.
Where to go for more information?
- National Cancer Institute (http://www.cancer.gov/)
- American Cancer Society (http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/index)
Cathy Kefer is a nurse practitioner and instructor at Southern Illinois University School of Medicineand is based at the Simmons Cancer Institute at SIU.
— Be Healthy Springfield (Ill.)
Cathy Kefer: Questions on cancer
Tags: non hodgkin lymphoma, primitive neuroectodermal tumors, normal cells, lymphatic system
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