Health: How Do Cancers Start

[HEALTH INFORMATION]

What is Cancer?

Cancer is the name given to a collection of related diseases...
In all types of cancer, some of the body’s cells begin to divide without stopping and spread into surrounding tissues.Cancer can start almost anywhere in the human body, which is made up of trillions of cells. Normally, human cells grow and divide to form new cells as the body needs them. When cells grow old or become damaged, they die, and new cells take their place.

When cancer develops, however, this orderly process breaks down. As cells become more and more abnormal, old or damaged cells survive when they should die, and new cells form when they are not needed. These extra cells can divide without stopping and may form growths called tumors.

How do cancers start?

Our bodies are made up of trillions of cells. You have different cells for different parts of your body – for example skin cells look and work differently from liver cells. Each cell contains DNA, which instructs the cell how to look and behave. Sometimes, our bodies need to make new cells to replace old ones or repair damage. To do this, a cell makes an extra copy of all its DNA and then splits into two new cells. This process can happen many times over and many cells can be doing this at any one time.

Normally when a cell splits, a number of checks happen to make sure that the DNA has been copied correctly and the new cells have everything they need to work properly. If a mistake is found, the cells die.

However, if these safety checks fail, the new cells may survive with mistakes in them. Sometimes, a mistake in DNA (known as a mutation) might not cause any problems. However, sometimes the mistake can make the new cells behave strangely, splitting into more abnormal cells at a fast rate, forming a tumour.

Not all tumours are cancer. If the tumour cells don’t have - and are very unlikely to gain - the ability to grow into neighbouring tissue, they are called benign tumours. Benign tumours often don’t need treatment and are not cancer.

However, if the tumour cells have the ability to invade neighbouring tissues, they are cancerous. Cancers are usually treated otherwise they may grow and spread, which can be life-threatening.