• Question: What is cancer and how does it effect the body? How does cancer spread?

    Asked by tylerburrans to Amelia, Jim, Liz, Prateek, Richard on 21 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Amelia Markey

      Amelia Markey answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      This website gives quite a good explanation:

      http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/cancerlibrary/what-is-cancer

      Cancer is the name for a collection of diseases really. There are lots of types that start in different ways and affect the body in different ways. The similarity is that cancer cells were once normal body cells that have gone a bit wrong. They divide a lot more rapidly than normal cells and for longer periods of time without dying. Cancer cells are also less adhesive (sticky) than normal cells. Normal cells like to have contact with other cells around them and with proteins in the environment around them but cancer cells don’t. This means that they can move about and spread to other areas of the body (this is called metastasis).

      Hope this answers your question 🙂

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