If you’re diagnosed with breast cancer is the rest of you safe? Or is it more like you have cancer in your body and it started in the breast?
In: Biology
This is a good question, but hard to answer at a 5yo level.
Cancer in the breast can spread to other places, if not treated, or if available treatments are not good enough. Cancerous breast cells prefer to go to particular places in the body, when they spread. But they are still breast cells, and we can identify them as such no matter where we find them, if we do a biopsy and look at/test them.
Having had cancer in one particular type of cell, may mean that you are fundamentally more likely to develop cancer in other cell types. You may have a pre-existing level or type of DNA damage that takes fewer mistakes to lose control of cell division. Or your body’s system of finding and destroying out-of-control cells may be faulty. Or you may just be that unlucky person whose number came up. And like the Hunger Games, the older you are, and the harder your life, the more lottery entries with your name on them.
This loss of cell division control is the basic problem in cancer. But it can happen in hundreds or maybe thousands of ways, and the type of error and type of cell determine how best to treat it. But even the best treatments can’t get every cell, and rely on your body having intact systems of cell monitoring and destruction to do a lot of the work.
So, in summary, your answer is 1. It depends, and 2. Yes and no.
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