Are all the different cancers really that different or is it all just cancer and we just specify where it formed?
In: Biology
All different. I like to think of it like fruits and veggies. You have a bunch of oranges in the grocery bin and one looks all funky and bumpy. That is orange cancer (or breast cancer for example). Then you have a bunch of carrots and one has extra bumps and arms. That is carrot cancer (or colon cancer for example) . Let’s say you have a stack of peppers and there is a funky orange in with the peppers. That is orange cancer that has traveled to the peppers (breast cancer that has traveled to the lungs for example) . Then you have a weird thing you can’t even tell if it was a fruit or a vegetable. It is all bumpy, but you can tell it was some sort of edible fruit or veggie, but can’t tell what it was, that is cancer of unknown origin.
My wife died of breast cancer and it always really pisses me off when everyone said “oh so its one of the good kind of cancers” as if it was one big super duper easy entity. It isn’t. There are various forms of breast cancer with young women (my wife was 27) most often getting a variety called Triple Negative Breast Cancer which ultimately is way more aggressive and much harder to treat (this is due to a lack of targeted therapies as a result of the absence of specific hormones Estrogen and Progesterone. Even within the TNBC mutation, individual characteristics such as the KI value, Grade, etc. will determine how high a chance of recurrence is. I can’t speak for all cancers but as far as I know fighting cancer, especially high grade cancers is like fighting an anime boss that can multiply himself and always knows your next step. Also you can get a cancer and have it metastasize in a different variety i.e. have a different genetic make-up.
Fuck Cancer
Cancer is when cells in the body grow aggressively out of control. Normally there are in built controls to stop cells growing but they fail in cancer cells. Cancer cells cause damage as they grow – either from being bulky, or replacing and damaging other cells and spreading into important areas.
There are many different cell types in the body and any one of those can become a cancer. Cancers that start in different parts of the body are generally different from each other. Even cancers that start in one part of the body – such as lung cancers – can be different from each other depending on the original cell type involved.
Cancers are caused by damage to cells which cause them to grow out of control. That damage is commonly due to mutations in the genes of that cell (think of cells as little computers and the genes the programmes or software that run inside them). The mutations are caused by damage such as from smoking, or sunlight, or alcohol, or aging. The damage changes the way the cell works – for example turning off the mechanisms that tell a cell to die when it is damaged or that stop it multiplying out of control.
Treatments for cancer basically try and kill the cancerous cells in the body. Cancer cells grow and divide faster than other cells, so treatments like basic chemotherapy kill lots of cells in the body and the cancer cells die alongside lots of other healthy cells. Basic radiotherapy kills all the cells in an area and is targeted at the Cancer by doctors. Newer chemo and radiotherapies are targeted at specific types of cancers and cells, and now there are even drugs that target specific cells down to their walls or the specific genes that have gone wrong. Using the bodies own immune system to target the cancer cell is a newer method and looks to be very effective. Often multiple methods are used together.
It is unlikely there will be one single “cure” for all cancer but it may be that the cures that work for one type of cancer can be modified to work for another.
Cancers can be classified on the basis of the cell they are originating from and the site they are originating from(primary). The basic mechanism behind tumor formations is how all cancer cells rapidly they proliferate. After that they metastasize that form secondaries.
What do you exactly mean by the difference? Depending on the cell type (carcinoma/sarcoma) they can be different and also sometimes they’re treatment modalities are different. Some times they become capable of secreting hormones too.
Say we have read that some tumors are highly radio sensitive so these can be treated using radiotherapy. Some respond better to the chemotherapeutic drugs. Some require surgery (partial or total removal of an organ of the body).
So to answer your question Imo cancers are same in their mechanism/ their pathogenesis but cam have different properties.
This is an excellent question! First let’s appreciate that there are about 37 trillion cells in a human body. That’s a huge number of very diverse cells that all have the same single ancestor, the fertilized egg cell. How can all of these cells have the same ancestor and yet all perform different functions? Nearly every cell in the body has the same DNA (notable exceptions for unique mutations that can arise in specific cells due to damage or mistakes, these cells can become cancerous). However, DNA is like a detailed and complete instruction manual for all cells, but each cell only needs access to a few chapters or even pages at a time: the chapters relevant to their specific environment and what their specific function is. Because every cell has a unique life history, the exact order of environments and stimuli during that cell’s life, they each behave slightly differently. So not only is every cancer different, every cell is different! This means that the same cancer can behave differently patient to patient, or within a patient in different locations, or within a patient over time. Notable differences in behavior are also present within populations of cancer cells in a patient.
These differences cause cells within the cancerous population to all react differently to a treatment and this variability can enhance the population’s ability to survive/replicate.
Different types of cancers can arise from many different sources (rare mutations due to environment, genetic defects inherited from the parents that are ubiquitous, etc.). The cause of the cancer can dramatically influence its behavior and there are often random affects that effect many parts of the cells at once. Unique combinations of mutations, the particular life history of the affected cells, their environment, the unique DNA sequence of the human, the humans life history, and many other factors can all dramatically affect the cancer’s behavior (though it is difficult to quantify just how much each factor can influence). Therefore, the huge number of possibilities nearly guarantees that every cancer and every cancer cell is unique, and their differences can be significant enough to influence patient outcomes.
Different organs can develop different cancers types that look (under the microscope) and behave (aggressiveness, chances to spread to different organs…) differently. This depends on which cell types the organ is made of.
Within the same cancer type are also differences depending on how the tumor looks (does it still resemble the cell type it is derived from? Are the cells very atypical?) and behaves (Is there invasion of vascular structures? Are there metastasis?).
Different organs that are made off the same cells can make the same cancer types. For example: The skin, esophagus, cervix… are all made of the same type of cells named squamous epithelium. They all can form squamous cell carcinoma. Those cancer types look the same under the microscope. The behavior differs depending on in which organ the cancer is formed.
Cancer is just a blanket term for any accumulation of mutations that causes rapid uncontrolled growth. Just like how licorice, jellybeans, and toffee would all be considered candy but are completely different, each case of cancer is unique (but can have similarities due to the nature of how mutations develop). Since the mechanism of cancerous growth is unique in each case the method of treatment will also vary depending on what mechanism it’s targeting.
They are not. Cancer is an umbrella term for a variety of different diseases that can be very very different from each other but share certain commonalities which are far less than their differences. it’s like the word Dairy. to say I need dairy is not very useful but to say this shop has dairy products is useful. This is similar to saying Skin Cancer which are dozens of different malignant diseases but those names are not useful for the patient nor any layman
While every cell in your body has the same DNA, every different knid of cell uses the DNA differently. They all read different parts of DNA to control how they behave. Skin cells behave differently from bone marrow cells because they read different parts of the DNA code.
The mechanisms that control reproduction and replication of each cell is very complex and like any complex system, things go wrong all the time. It’s just that the error correction systems are pretty robust and they deal with these errors very well.
I work with oncologists, writing software for them and its interesting how I can understand what they’re trying to explain to me, a layperson. Here’s the simplest explanation of cancer. Three distinct mutations to the cell’s system have to happen to create malignant cancer.
One: the mechasim that controls when the cell divides has to break in such a way that the cell divides too much. Normally, this isn’t that bad because the excess cells will usually just die off because they won’t get a blood supply.
Two: the mechanism that controls how a cell signals the surrounding tissues to include it in the blood supply has to break in such a way that other cells will provide blood supply even though they shouldn’t. Normally, this isn’t a problem because the cell isn’t dividing uncontrollably.
Three: the machansim that tells the cell where it can divide and grow has to be break in such a way that the cell will divide and grow even when it’s not in the right environment. Normally this isn’t a problem because it isn’t dividing uncontrollably and can’t get blood supply even if it does.
Every cell responds to different signals and mechanisms to perform all these operations. All the different types use different genes, or use the same genes differently for these common processes. So, how any given cell acquires all three kinds of mutations is different for every kind of cell.
Cancers are different, and the treatments vary accordingly. For example even breast cancer has many types. Some as related to hormones, some to a protein, some neither. Fuck cancer.
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