Breast pain doesn't always mean cancer: When to get a mammogram
While anyone can experience breast pain, don't panic: It's rarely cancer.
Jan 27, 2023
0
2
While anyone can experience breast pain, don't panic: It's rarely cancer.
Jan 27, 2023
0
2
If you've ever felt pain, tenderness and tightness—maybe even a sharp, stabbing sensation—in your breasts, it's hard not to jump to conclusions. Could it be the "C" word?
Jan 27, 2023
0
47
Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute and King's College London have created a tool to predict the effects of different diets on both cancerous cells and healthy cells.
Jan 27, 2023
0
95
Error-correcting mechanisms are very important for cells, because with all the cellular activity constantly going on, malfunctions arise all the time. But when it comes to killing cancer cells, it is in the cells' best interest ...
Jan 27, 2023
0
52
The first comprehensive study of somatic mutations in normal human small intestine has been conducted by researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and their collaborators. The findings revealed that an enzyme named APOBEC1 ...
Jan 27, 2023
0
19
A new research perspective titled "Intraventricular immunovirotherapy; a translational step forward" has been published in Oncotarget.
Jan 26, 2023
0
5
A new clinical and preclinical study from UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center identifies the DNA roots of resistance to targeted cancer therapy, providing a possible strategy to address a vexing issue in cancer therapeutics. ...
Jan 26, 2023
0
47
A new study that used insights from the lab to drive a clinical trial for patients with a difficult-to-treat form of colorectal cancer improved patients' response to treatment and has yielded key insights with broad relevance ...
Jan 26, 2023
0
33
A new study that analyzed the tumor microenvironment of pancreatic cancer revealed the cause of tumor cell resistance to immunotherapy and resulted in new treatment strategies.
Jan 26, 2023
0
44
Cancer experts have tried, sometimes unsuccessfully, to use the total number of mutations in a tumor, called the tumor mutation burden (TMB), to predict a patient's response to immunotherapy. Now, investigators at the Johns ...
Jan 26, 2023
0
36
Cancer (medical term: malignant neoplasm) is a class of diseases in which a group of cells display uncontrolled growth (division beyond the normal limits), invasion (intrusion on and destruction of adjacent tissues), and sometimes metastasis (spread to other locations in the body via lymph or blood). These three malignant properties of cancers differentiate them from benign tumors, which are self-limited, and do not invade or metastasize. Most cancers form a tumor but some, like leukemia, do not. The branch of medicine concerned with the study, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of cancer is oncology.
Cancer may affect people at all ages, even fetuses, but the risk for most varieties increases with age. Cancer causes about 13% of all human deaths. According to the American Cancer Society, 7.6 million people died from cancer in the world during 2007. Cancers can affect all animals.
Nearly all cancers are caused by abnormalities in the genetic material of the transformed cells. These abnormalities may be due to the effects of carcinogens, such as tobacco smoke, radiation, chemicals, or infectious agents. Other cancer-promoting genetic abnormalities may be randomly acquired through errors in DNA replication, or are inherited, and thus present in all cells from birth. The heritability of cancers are usually affected by complex interactions between carcinogens and the host's genome. New aspects of the genetics of cancer pathogenesis, such as DNA methylation, and microRNAs are increasingly recognized as important.
Genetic abnormalities found in cancer typically affect two general classes of genes. Cancer-promoting oncogenes are typically activated in cancer cells, giving those cells new properties, such as hyperactive growth and division, protection against programmed cell death, loss of respect for normal tissue boundaries, and the ability to become established in diverse tissue environments. Tumor suppressor genes are then inactivated in cancer cells, resulting in the loss of normal functions in those cells, such as accurate DNA replication, control over the cell cycle, orientation and adhesion within tissues, and interaction with protective cells of the immune system.
Diagnosis usually requires the histologic examination of a tissue biopsy specimen by a pathologist, although the initial indication of malignancy can be symptoms or radiographic imaging abnormalities. Most cancers can be treated and some cured, depending on the specific type, location, and stage. Once diagnosed, cancer is usually treated with a combination of surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. As research develops, treatments are becoming more specific for different varieties of cancer. There has been significant progress in the development of targeted therapy drugs that act specifically on detectable molecular abnormalities in certain tumors, and which minimize damage to normal cells. The prognosis of cancer patients is most influenced by the type of cancer, as well as the stage, or extent of the disease. In addition, histologic grading and the presence of specific molecular markers can also be useful in establishing prognosis, as well as in determining individual treatments.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA