When somebody dies of cancer, what exactly is the actual reason the body stops working?
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The answer is, “it depends”, but in general, tumour tissue is non-funcitonal, and if enough non-functional tissue invades an organ, it interferes with the regular function of the organ. If you’re in stage 4 cancer, this is happening concurrently, in several organs throughout your body, and the remaining functional tissues is under an ever-increasing amount of stress as it has to compensate for all this non-functioning tissue which is dividing out of control and spreading, consuming nutrients, and excreting waste, often in ways that the body can struggle to cope with.
But not all cancers are the same, and it’s random chance to find out which comorbidity actually pushes the patient over the tipping point, if it can even be divined at all. You can also get mechanical failures, cancer of the lungs leads to hypoxia. Cancers in the stomach or colon can cause blockages, preventing you from absorbing food or eliminating waste. Cancers in the lymphatic system can cripple your immune system. Cancers in the brain can disrupt any number of critical functions.
Plus, of course, in all cancers, the treatments themselves are also very stressful. Methotrexate, one of the first chemotherapy drugs, invented back in 1947, and still used to this day, is an immunosuppressant and antimetabolite, binding with folate in your cells thwarting the synthesis of DNA, RNA, thymidylates, and proteins. For fast-replicating cancer cells, this can severely inhibit their growth, and even kill them off, but it also is quite good at killing your healthy cells, which also need to be able to synthesize DNA, RNA, thymidylates, and proteins.
So the side effects of your treatment can also lead to your death. Getting a flu or a cold is a mild inconvenience in a healthy person with a functioning immune system. When your immune system is paralyzed by your chemo drugs… it’s not good.
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