How does cancer spread? Do the cancer cells infect other cells?
In: Biology
Cancerous cells are basically just normal cells that have a broken “off switch”. They just don’t know when to stop replicating. Eventually they just keep .making copies of themselves and break into a vein or artery, and travel along your bloodstream until they end up somewhere else and just keep replicating
The main trait for cancer is that the cells rapidly grow and multiply, so there are relatively a large number of cancer cells when it is going badly when you have a large lump of these cells some can occasionally break off from the main lump and then get pulled along the body’s main transport systems (blood, lymph, etc.) and then settle in a new location. This is known as metastasis and where most cancers turn lethal as the locations where they settle can interfere with the normal operation of healthy organs which potentially can kill you. https://youtu.be/Q5–K1nUOM4
Cancer cells move to new areas and begin to grow chaotically, forming new tumors in different parts of the body : that’s called metastasis.
Cancer doesn’t infect other cells, it grows by reproducing.
At some point it grows so big that it breaks. The broken off bits travel through your blood, get stuck somewhere else, and then continue to grow there.
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