Download What is cancer

What is cancer?
Cancer can be a scary word, but it doesn't have to be.
It's a disease that's been around for millions of years. Cancer has even been found in dinosaur
bones!
The ancient Egyptians had it and the Greeks even came up with its name - it means "crab".
It is a common disease and it is likely sometime in your life you will know someone who is
affected by it.
There are over 200 different kinds.
Cancer happens when a small bit of how a cell works or behaves goes wrong.
The human body is made up of hundreds of different sorts of cells which all have different
jobs to do to make the body work.
When cells go wrong, they grow the wrong way and they can start destroying healthy body
tissue.
What causes cancer?
Scientists know a lot more about cancers now because so much research is going on to find
out about it.
But there's still lots to discover.
Because there are so many different types of cancers that can happen anywhere in the body,
there are different causes.
What experts do know is cancer is caused by damaged genes in your DNA.
Genes are the set of coded instructions which decide what happens to a cell in its life. The
instructions are kept in a cell's nucleus.
But if genes get damaged, this can trigger wrong cell behaviour.
Cells start to behave out of control - like a naughty kid at school - and they ignore the rules on
how to behave.
Experts reckon there are three main causes of gene damage:



Diet
Smoking
Harmful sun rays
Two thirds of cancers are caused by these two factors.
How is it treated?
Different types of cancers need different kinds of treatment.
There is no absolute cure yet, but lots of treatments work to get rid of the cancer.
Usually if doctors see where a tumour is, they will operate to cut it out first.
But the tumour may leave cancerous cells behind in the body.
These have to be blitzed away.
There are two main ways of doing this - chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Some cancers
need both treatments.
Chemotherapy:







Uses different combinations of drugs
The drugs spot fast-growing cells which are likely to be cancerous, then poisons and
kills them to stop them spreading
Usually injected into the bloodstream
The chemo swims around the body to attack cancer cells wherever they are
Problem is, the drugs can't tell the difference between cancerous and healthy cells
Doctors are working on ways of making chemo kill only bad cancer cells
Because chemo spots fast-growing cells, it thinks hair follicle cells are cancerous. This
can cause some people to lose their hair - but it grows back when treatment stops.
Radiotherapy




Uses powerful radiation - similar to x-rays - to destroy cancer cells
Usually used to treat solid tumours found in just one place
Can only be given to small areas of the body or it will damage healthy cells
Is sometimes used to shrink tumours before operations to removes them totally.
Both treatments can make people feel tired and can mean they are more likely to pick up
infections like colds.
Usually they just need to rest and stay away from flu-ey people.
When someone has gone through treatment and doctors say they are "in remission", it means
the treatment has killed off the cancer cells in the body.
How do I get help?
Sometimes people with cancer don't want to talk about it.
But you can help by knowing the facts and asking professionals for tips on how you can
support someone with cancer.
The important thing is to let the person who has cancer know that you are there if they do
want to talk.
The groups will also help you understand what's happening if you have cancer too.
source:www.bbc.co.uk