My mother died of bowel cancer when I was a teenager, it has spread to her bladder, lungs and liver. I still wonder how it actually killed her. What went wrong that stopped her heart pumping and lungs breathing?
In: Biology
Cancer are unregulated cells that don’t follow their original function. This is often characterized by uncontrolled cell division, creating a tumor, or a clump of cells.
Now tumors can inhibit function several ways, the most common being applied pressure or waste products that can be bad for healthy cells.
Many cancers aren’t particularly dangerous where they originate, but instead where they end up. Think breast and testicular cancer. While you might lose function of those organs, they aren’t strictly necessary for survival.
The problem occurs when they break off (metastasis) and migrate to other parts of the body that are vital and inhibit their function. Think brain, heart, lungs. Many of those locations have specific functions and large tumors or bi-products of cancer cells can mess that up.
Edit- As u/Tdshimo said, resource stealing is another big reason why tumors hurt a localized area.
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