 Cancer is life-threatening when cells metastasize
Added: 12/04/2005 |
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The term metastasize has a Greek origin. It is translated as "the change of the state" from Greek. In medicine, the term signifies cancer spreading to other parts of body, such as liver, brain and others. The process of metastasize is the following. Cancer cells come off the primary tumor, get into blood and lymphatic vessels, circulate in the blood and grow somewhere else in the body.
Metastasis can be different. First of all, it is necessary to say that there are two kinds of tumors. They are benign and malignant. Malignant growth may spread by means of invasion and metastasize, that is spread to other parts of the body. As for benign tumors, they grow only locally and cannot travel. The term cancer is applicable only to the benign tumors. Nevertheless, there are certain types of benign tumors that behave just like malignant ones. For example, the treatment with brain tumors should be as aggressive as with malignant growth.
Patients with the diagnosis of cancer want to know whether their disease is local or can be spreading to other parts of body as well. Life threating cancer is determined by the ability of the disease to spread to other locations. Scientists are interested in the fact that stimulates metastasize influence the cancerous tumor. There are two ways of 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 stated that prostate cancer is likely to metastasize to bones. Color cancer usually metastasizes to the liver. Stomach cancer has a tendency to metastasize to the ovary in the women's bodies, thus forming there a Krukenberg tumor.
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 known as metastatic prostate cancer (not bones cancer).
The process of metastasizing is represented by a complex of stages in which cells of cancer leave the original tumor and move to other parts of the body either through blood or through the lymph system. The scientists researching cancer studied the conditions necessary for malignant growth. 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 healthy 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, the types of the treatment used before.
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