Disease
Keyword: what causes cancer?
Although now about half of all cancers can be cured, But what happens there? Why mutate healthy cells suddenly to deadly monsters?
Our body consists of different cell types, in total, there are approximately 100 trillion. These cells will divide only if it is for the body is necessary, such as old or defective cells replaced. A complex System in our body ensures that the necessary cells in precise amount and with the correct Genetic information – at the right place of the body to be formed.
Where a cell belongs to, how often it divides, and when they die, is in the nucleus is stored. At each cell division, this information will be copied and on a so-called Daughter cell transfer. This process takes place in our bodies every second, several million Times.
A sophisticated System
The division runs in a controlled and ensures that our body works. But it may be that Genetic information is incorrectly read. This faulty operation will cause the cells to mutate.
They contain other Information relating to their division and their function in the body than healthy cells. It comes to cell division, with no new cells are needed. The immune system is not able to incorrect cells to sort out. Mutated cells survive. The division runs uncontrollably, it is an excessive amount of tissue formed. It comes to a tumour, a tumour. He can be benign but also malignant. Then the diagnosis: cancer.
Good or evil?
Malignant tumors grow quickly, and they grow beyond their original bounds. They send early langfingrige Zellausläufer. You can about the actual Organ outgrow it.
Sometimes this happens in a stage in which the cancer is still not detected. The cells spread in the blood vessels, and can be so different – even distant organs. They displace the surrounding tissue and destroy it.
For malignant tumors, there are often metastases, i.e. metastases. The cancer spreads. The metastases can be in different parts of the body appear. They settle often in typical target organs, including the lungs, liver or brain.
Benign tumors, however, grow slower, although they can become very large. In contrast to malignant tumors, but you remain in a defined Region of the body, are encapsulated, grow not so in other areas, such as in blood vessels. They form no metastases. They are usually not life-threatening. Once they are removed, they grow only very rarely.
Not every cancer ends in death. The disease is detected early, the chances for a cure.
Grow in Secret
Cancer cells proliferate often go unnoticed
Cancer cells have sophisticated ways, “invisible”: you can, for example, to disguise themselves, by the typical characteristics of healthy cells or the properties of other tissue accept. So they are not initially identifiable, and can be a long time in Hidden slumber. Sometimes, in between the formation of a single cancer cell and the onset of a detectable cancer for years, sometimes even decades, pass.
In the mutant cancer cells can the programs for the normal aging process and death of the cells fail. The cancer cells are effectively immortal.
Why can cancer be fatal?
There are the consequential damages of cancer, which can lead to death. Because the malignant cells attack the organs, so that their original function can no longer fulfill. In liver cancer, for example, the liver is no longer able to detoxify the body.
The same is true for the kidneys or even the lungs. There, the oxygen in the advanced stage, no longer into the blood. In the final stage leads to cancer to the fact that our organs for us, vital functions can no longer fulfill.