I know what a tumor is, but can someone explain what terminal cancer is and what is it about cancer that can kill/ cause permanent damage to your body?
In: Biology
Imagine you had skin cancer. Say you get a tumor or something. If the cancer stayed in your skin, and stayed in that tumor, the worst it would do is disfigure you and require you to get it cut out. It wouldn’t be deadly at all. That cancer is made of skin cells, and you have billions of them so losing a few isn’t going to kill you.
Here’s the problem though, that skin is connected via blood vessels and lymphatic vessels that move fluids around your body like blood and lymph. Those cancerous skin cells can hitch a ride on this system, and move to other parts of the body, where they continue to rapidly multiply, forming new tumors.
Im sure you don’t have to imagine how bad it would be if a huge clump of cancerous skin started growing in the middle of your liver, heart, lungs, or brain right? When a cancer spreads to other parts of the body it’s said to have metastasized.
One other factor is that not all cells multiply or reproduce at the same rate. And if a cancerous cell naturally reproduces quickly, it can form quick growing, fast spreading cancers that are very difficult to catch in time. While other cells may grow much more slowly and take decades to do their damage, giving doctors more time to catch them before they spread.
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