 Malignant growth makes cancer a life threatening disease
Added: 12/04/2005 |
|
The term metastasize has a Greek origin. From Greek it is translated as the change of the state. In medicine the term signifies cancer spreading to other parts of the body, such as liver, brain and others. The process of malignant growth is characterized by uncontrolled cells multiplying. Cancer cells turn off the primary tumor, get into blood and lymphatic vessels, circulate in the blood and grow elsewhere in the body.
There are two kinds of tumors: benign and malignant. Malignant growth may spread by means of invasion and metastasize, that is spreading to other parts of the body. As for benign tumors, they grow only locally and cannot metastasize. The term cancer is applicable only to benign tumors. Nevertheless, there are certain types of benign tumors that behave just like malignant ones. For example, the treatment of brain tumors should be as aggressive as of malignant growth.
Patients diagnosed with cancer want to know whether their disease is local or can be spread to other organs as well. Life-threatening cancer is determined by the ability of the disease to spread to other locations. Scientists are interested in what that stimulates the metastasize influence on the cancerous tumor. There are two ways for cancer to metastasize: through blood and through lymphatics, or through both of them. The places where tumor develops more often are brain, adrenals, liver and bones. There is also a tendency of certain tumors migrate to other organs. For instance, it is established that prostate cancer is likely to metastasize to bones. Stomach cancer has a tendency to metastasize to the ovary in women`s, thus forming a Krukenberg tumor there.
When the cancer moves to a new place to form a new tumor, it is called metastatic or secondary tumor. The cells here are like in the original tumor. For instance, if prostate cancer metastasizes to the bones, the secondary tumor is formed by abnormal prostate cells (not abnormal bones cells). The disease in the bones is metastatic prostate cancer (not bones cancer).
The process of metastazing is represented by a complex series of stages, in which cancer cells leave the original tumor and move to other parts of the body either through blood or through the lymph system. This process is represented by uncontrolled cells multiplying and non-stopped cell division. The scientist researching cancer studied the conditions necessary for malignant growth to appear. They found out that one of the main factors required for malignant growth is the spread of a network of blood vessels. The process of blood vessels growing is called angiogenesis.
Tumor angiogenesis can be defined as the growth of blood vessels network which gets into cancerous growths and provides them with oxygen and nutrients and takes away the waste products. As usual the process starts when cancerous cells release molecules sending signals to normal host tissue. These signals activate some genes in the host tissue thus making proteins encourage new blood vessels growth.
There are several kinds of treatment applied for metastatic cancer. The most popular are radiation therapy, hormone therapy, biological therapy, chemotherapy, surgery or a combination of different kinds of treatment. The treatment of the patient depends on a number of factors, such as the kind of the primary cancer, the location and the size of the metastasis, the age and general health of the patient and the types of the treatment used before.
Article comments:
No comments for this article yet.
Post your comment now!
Return to top of the page
