What Are the Symptoms of Cancer?
Cancer is a disease of the body that starts when cells grow and divide out of control. Over time, cancer can affect many different parts of the body and cause symptoms that vary from person to person. Some people have cancer and don’t have any symptoms at all, while others have pain and other signs of the disease that don’t go away.
Symptoms of cancer are usually easy to spot, but sometimes they can be hard to notice. If you have any of these symptoms, tell your doctor right away so that they can see if you have cancer.
The most common symptoms of cancer are a lump or growth that isn’t healing, changes in your skin, weight loss, and bleeding. You may also have trouble breathing, feeling tired or weak, or have a fever. If any of these symptoms last more than 2 weeks or don’t go away, they may be a sign that you have cancer.
Your body is made up of trillions of cells that normally grow and divide as needed. When they’re abnormal or get old, these cells don’t die and they crowd out the normal cells.
A tumor is a collection of cancer cells that have gathered together to form an area (a mass) in your body called a malignant melanoma, breast cancer, colon cancer, or lung cancer. These cancers have a similar appearance and share some common features, but they are all different in how they develop and grow and how they respond to treatment.
Most cancers start in cells that are located within the same body tissue. When these cells are exposed to a carcinogen, the chemical causes a change in the cell’s genetic material that allows it to become cancerous.
Some of these changes happen very quickly, while other changes occur slowly. The way your cells react to a carcinogen depends on the type of cancer and the way your body is designed.
These changes can be inherited by your genes or they can happen in your body as a result of the effects of certain chemicals or radiation. In the past, scientists had very little knowledge about how these changes might occur.
But now, our understanding of how cancer cells are made and develop has been greatly improved. Scientists have discovered that a major reason cancer cells develop is because they are unable to repair their DNA properly. In addition, these cancer cells lose the controls (tumor suppressor genes) that tell them to stop growing uncontrollably.
In the end, these factors lead to the development of a single abnormal cell that can then grow into a mass of cancer cells called a tumor. These tumors are either monoclonal, which means that each cancer cell in a tumor represents the original transformation of one cancer cell to a cancerous one, or polyclonal, which means that each tumor contains the descendants of several cancerous cells.
In the case of a tumor, cancer cells can spread to other parts of the body by breaking away from the primary cancer and traveling through the bloodstream or lymph system. These cells can then settle in a new area, begin to grow, and form new tumors that are referred to as metastases.
Cancer is a disease of the body that starts when cells grow and divide out of control. Over time, cancer can affect many different parts of the body and cause symptoms that vary from person to person. Some people have cancer and don’t have any symptoms at all, while others have pain and other signs of the disease that don’t go away. Symptoms of cancer are usually easy to spot, but sometimes they can be hard to notice. If you have any of these symptoms, tell your doctor right away so that they can see if you have cancer. The most common symptoms of cancer are a lump or growth that isn’t healing, changes in your skin, weight loss, and bleeding. You may also have trouble breathing, feeling tired or weak, or have a fever. If any of these symptoms last more than 2 weeks or don’t go away, they may be a sign that you have cancer. Your body is made up of trillions of cells that normally grow and divide as needed. When they’re abnormal or get old, these cells don’t die and they crowd out the normal cells. A tumor is a collection of cancer cells that have gathered together to form an area (a mass) in your body called a malignant melanoma, breast cancer, colon cancer, or lung cancer. These cancers have a similar appearance and share some common features, but they are all different in how they develop and grow and how they respond to treatment. Most cancers start in cells that are located within the same body tissue. When these cells are exposed to a carcinogen, the chemical causes a change in the cell’s genetic material that allows it to become cancerous. Some of these changes happen very quickly, while other changes occur slowly. The way your cells react to a carcinogen depends on the type of cancer and the way your body is designed. These changes can be inherited by your genes or they can happen in your body as a result of the effects of certain chemicals or radiation. In the past, scientists had very little knowledge about how these changes might occur. But now, our understanding of how cancer cells are made and develop has been greatly improved. Scientists have discovered that a major reason cancer cells develop is because they are unable to repair their DNA properly. In addition, these cancer cells lose the controls (tumor suppressor genes) that tell them to stop growing uncontrollably. In the end, these factors lead to the development of a single abnormal cell that can then grow into a mass of cancer cells called a tumor. These tumors are either monoclonal, which means that each cancer cell in a tumor represents the original transformation of one cancer cell to a cancerous one, or polyclonal, which means that each tumor contains the descendants of several cancerous cells. In the case of a tumor, cancer cells can spread to other parts of the body by breaking away from the primary cancer and traveling through the bloodstream or lymph system. These cells can then settle in a new area, begin to grow, and form new tumors that are referred to as metastases.