Cancer
What is cancer?
We are all made from millions of tiny cells. As we grow, cells keep on dividing and increasing in number. When we stop growing most of our cells stop dividing although some cells keep on dividing for the whole of our lives, so that things get replaced when they are worn out.
Cancer is caused by normal cells changing so that they keep on dividing and growing in an uncontrollable way. The dividing cells create a lump that is called a tumour. There are two types of tumours. A benign tumour is harmless and does not spread and would normally only need to be removed if it grew too big or was causing problems for other body parts near it.
A malignant tumour is cancerous and can grow into body parts nearby so that it can be difficult and sometimes impossible to remove. It can also spread because bits can break off and grow in different parts of the body. Sometimes a cancer is not a lump, but faulty cells in the bone marrow or lymph nodes.
There are more than 200 types of cancer and this is because our bodies have over 200 types of cells – if it’s cells in your kidney that go wrong, for example, then this would be cancer of the kidney.
Sometimes you might hear the phrases “primary” or “secondary” cancer. Primary cancer means the place where the cancer begins eg. The lungs. Sometimes the cancer cells can break away from this first area and be carried by the blood around the body to form new tumours somewhere else. These new tumours are then called secondary cancers.
- What is cancer?
- What are the symptoms?
- How do people get cancer?
- Who can help?
- Treatments
- Other organisations
