What Is Cancer?

Since I am a firm believer that knowledge is power, I'm going to go through a little bit of the description of what cancer actually is. Education in this dreaded disease is a good way to try and reduce the damage it can wreak upon your life.

Cancer (or in medical talk: malignant neoplasm) is a class of diseases in which a group of cells display uncontrolled growth, and sometimes metastasis (which means that it spreads to other locations in the body via lymph or blood). These properties of cancers differentiate them from benign tumors, which do not invade or metastasize. Most cancers form a tumor but some, like leukemia, do not.

Cancer affects people at all ages with the risk for most types increasing with age.

Cancers are caused by abnormalities in the genetic material of the transformed cells. These abnormalities may be due to the effects of carcinogens, such as tobacco smoke, radiation, chemicals, asbestos (as in my case unfortunately) or infectious agents. Other cancer-promoting genetic abnormalities may randomly occur through errors in DNA replication, or are inherited, and thus present in all cells from birth.

All this means that cancer is a very serious, and very aggressive illness. It is still onle of the last medical conditions that science is fighting for a way to counteract.

I hope this has been of some help. Remember: if you are going though a situation like mine, learning all you can about this disease is an excellent first step toward combating it.

Best wishes,

Rhys.