Metastasis is the technical term. Basically what happens is that pieces of tumor break off and are spread throughout your body by your circulatory or lymphatic system, and start to grow new tumors wherever they end up.
If they end up in a vital organ like your lungs or your brain or your bone marrow, eventually they grow large enough to interfere with the necessary systems that keep you alive.
A benign tumor is a tumor that for whatever reason can’t spread to any other tissues. It’s still cancer, but it (probably) can’t kill you in and of itself.
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