I mean, we just have some additional cells who does not perform their normal functionality. But we still have a big bunch of normal, functioning cells.
In my (very very) distant family, someone died from lung cancer a few months ago. I still don’t understand the link between the few additional cells in his lungs and the acute hepatic failure that killed him.
I read somewhere that a primary cancer seldom kills ; most of the time the metastasic-induced does. Why ? There should be far more “bad” cells in the primary site, doesn’t it ?
(medecine illiterate there, sorry if half of my assumptions are wrong)
Cancerous cells multiply incontrollably until they form their little own neighborhood, called tumor, which slowly and ruthlessly pushes everything else out of its way. In the case of lung cancer, the obvious consequence is that there’s less space available for the healthy lung to do its job.
Cancerous cells are ravenous consumers of resources, and compete with the host body for them. You slowly become emaciated and malnourished as your cancer steals your food from you.
Tumors arising in glands may result in the dangerous overproduction of certain hormones.
Just as an aside, linking all sentences makes them a little uncomfortable to read. Please in the future just link a single sentence or only some words.
Other people have covered the effects of solid tumors quite well.
Blood tumors often do not form solid masses. They are the result of stem cells in the bone marrow (or occasionally actual immune system cells) becoming cancerous. These cells are highly mobile and usually do not embed themselves in solid tissue (except for lymphomas). What they do is outcompete your normal bone marrow and blood cells, preventing your immune system from working and your red blood cells from regenerating and your platelets from clotting your blood. I’ve read reports from autopsies in the 1800s of people who died from (what we would call untreated) leukemia that their blood resembled pus more than blood due to the paucity of normal red blood cells and huge level of abnormal nonfunctional white blood cells.
I’m not particularly knowledgeable about cancer but I can give you the simplified version:
few additional cells
I think this is at the root of your misconception. It starts out as a few additional cells rapidly dividing, but the end-stage typically involves macroscopic-level changes, like this Here.
Sometimes it’s the sheer bulk of cells that kills in the same way a rock in your brain might, other times it’s the gradual replacement of working cells with non-functional cells, and other times it messes up sophisticated signalling stuff. (For example, the cancer cells might be putting out large amounts of hormones, or diverting blood flow).
primary cancer seldom kills ; most of the time the metastasic-induced does. Why ?
Metastatis means little cancer “seed” cells are floating around all over your bloodstream, right? This means that at any random time, a cancerous growth can suddenly pop up in any random region with no warning. Some of these growths will be benign, and others deadly. You have to obsessively scan the body for new growths from then on if you want to protect yourself.
With primary cancers at least you can sometimes just cut them or irradiate them or shrink them, or just work around them (like with lung cancer, just give them an oxygen tank to make up for the reduced efficiency).
Metastatis means little cancer “seed” cells are floating around all over your bloodstream, right? This means that at any random time, a cancerous growth can suddenly pop up in any random region with no warning.
In particular, metastasis is most common in the liver and lung. Your lungs receive as much bloodflow as the rest of your body put together and have lots of small blood vessels for gas exchange, so it’s easy for circulating cells to get strained out and start growing there. And your liver similarly gets all the blood from your digestive tract passing through it before it returns to your heart, moving it through lots of low-velocity low-pressure capillary passages where liver cells perform lots of chemical reactions and free cells have an easy time settling down. Unfortunately both your liver and lungs are extremely important organs.
I read somewhere that a primary cancer seldom kills ; most of the time the metastasic-induced does. Why ? There should be far more “bad” cells in the primary site, doesn’t it ?
In the West you can often operate the primary site away.
I read somewhere that a primary cancer seldom kills ; most of the time the metastasic-induced does. Why ? There should be far more “bad” cells in the primary site, doesn’t it ?
The most anatomical origins for cancers (skin, breast and prostate) are not vital organs, so a cancer in one of those places won’t kill you if it stays in place. The danger is if it metastasizes to a vital organ (most commonly the lungs or liver) and interferes with its function. If a cancer starts in a vital organ, it’s more likely to kill you through its effects on that organ, not by spreading elsewhere.
To throw another reference into the discussion, section 1.8 of McKinnell et al.’s The Biological Basis of Cancer spends a few pages on this. Summary: cancers can cause organ failure, but because the body has “an enormous reserve of normal tissue plus a built-in mechanism to regenerate more” organ failure is not usually the proximate cause of (edit: non-leukaemia) cancer death; the most common cause of death is instead cachexia (wasting) and hence infection.
I still don’t understand HOW cancer kills.
I mean, we just have some additional cells who does not perform their normal functionality. But we still have a big bunch of normal, functioning cells.
In my (very very) distant family, someone died from lung cancer a few months ago. I still don’t understand the link between the few additional cells in his lungs and the acute hepatic failure that killed him.
I read somewhere that a primary cancer seldom kills ; most of the time the metastasic-induced does. Why ? There should be far more “bad” cells in the primary site, doesn’t it ?
(medecine illiterate there, sorry if half of my assumptions are wrong)
Cancerous cells multiply incontrollably until they form their little own neighborhood, called tumor, which slowly and ruthlessly pushes everything else out of its way. In the case of lung cancer, the obvious consequence is that there’s less space available for the healthy lung to do its job.
Cancerous cells are ravenous consumers of resources, and compete with the host body for them. You slowly become emaciated and malnourished as your cancer steals your food from you.
Tumors arising in glands may result in the dangerous overproduction of certain hormones.
Cancers can cause death in more than one way. So there is no single answer to this question. It really depends on the type of cancer you have and which parts of your body are affected.
Just as an aside, linking all sentences makes them a little uncomfortable to read. Please in the future just link a single sentence or only some words.
It’s because the text is light green on a white background. Perhaps if they changed the link color?
Other people have covered the effects of solid tumors quite well.
Blood tumors often do not form solid masses. They are the result of stem cells in the bone marrow (or occasionally actual immune system cells) becoming cancerous. These cells are highly mobile and usually do not embed themselves in solid tissue (except for lymphomas). What they do is outcompete your normal bone marrow and blood cells, preventing your immune system from working and your red blood cells from regenerating and your platelets from clotting your blood. I’ve read reports from autopsies in the 1800s of people who died from (what we would call untreated) leukemia that their blood resembled pus more than blood due to the paucity of normal red blood cells and huge level of abnormal nonfunctional white blood cells.
I’m not particularly knowledgeable about cancer but I can give you the simplified version:
I think this is at the root of your misconception. It starts out as a few additional cells rapidly dividing, but the end-stage typically involves macroscopic-level changes, like this Here.
Sometimes it’s the sheer bulk of cells that kills in the same way a rock in your brain might, other times it’s the gradual replacement of working cells with non-functional cells, and other times it messes up sophisticated signalling stuff. (For example, the cancer cells might be putting out large amounts of hormones, or diverting blood flow).
Metastatis means little cancer “seed” cells are floating around all over your bloodstream, right? This means that at any random time, a cancerous growth can suddenly pop up in any random region with no warning. Some of these growths will be benign, and others deadly. You have to obsessively scan the body for new growths from then on if you want to protect yourself.
With primary cancers at least you can sometimes just cut them or irradiate them or shrink them, or just work around them (like with lung cancer, just give them an oxygen tank to make up for the reduced efficiency).
In particular, metastasis is most common in the liver and lung. Your lungs receive as much bloodflow as the rest of your body put together and have lots of small blood vessels for gas exchange, so it’s easy for circulating cells to get strained out and start growing there. And your liver similarly gets all the blood from your digestive tract passing through it before it returns to your heart, moving it through lots of low-velocity low-pressure capillary passages where liver cells perform lots of chemical reactions and free cells have an easy time settling down. Unfortunately both your liver and lungs are extremely important organs.
In the West you can often operate the primary site away.
The most anatomical origins for cancers (skin, breast and prostate) are not vital organs, so a cancer in one of those places won’t kill you if it stays in place. The danger is if it metastasizes to a vital organ (most commonly the lungs or liver) and interferes with its function. If a cancer starts in a vital organ, it’s more likely to kill you through its effects on that organ, not by spreading elsewhere.
To throw another reference into the discussion, section 1.8 of McKinnell et al.’s The Biological Basis of Cancer spends a few pages on this. Summary: cancers can cause organ failure, but because the body has “an enormous reserve of normal tissue plus a built-in mechanism to regenerate more” organ failure is not usually the proximate cause of (edit: non-leukaemia) cancer death; the most common cause of death is instead cachexia (wasting) and hence infection.