What is Cancer, Characterstic of cancer cells, Types of Cancer causing Agents

Cancer, Characterstic of cancer cells, Types of Cancer causing Agents

• Cancer is defined as uncontrolled cell division without cell differentiation.

Characterstic feature of Cancerous cells. 

• The cancer cell has following characteristics - These cells do not require any extracellular growth factors. These cells lost the property of contact inhibition. 

• Due to repeated division, cells form a mass of tissue called tumor. The cells may pass out from the site of tumors to other sites of the body.

• The invasion of cancerous cells from one part to other part of body is called Metastasis.

• The cancer is caused by the oncogenic virus having viral oncogene.

Read more about the AIDS

• Normal cells have cellular oncogene (c-once) or photo oncogene which are present in inactivated state but under certain conditions, these are transformed into cancer causing oncogene.

Cancer causing agents

• The cancer causing agents are called as carcinogen. These may be chemical, physical and biological.

• Aniline dye, N- nitroso dimethyl amine, benzopyrene cadmium oxide etc are chemical carcinogens.

• Ionising radiation like X ray , gamma ray, and non ionising radiation like UV rays are physical carcinogens.

• Oncogenic viruses are biological carcinogens. Cellular oncogene or c onc or proto oncogene are cancer causing gene.

Types of Cancer

• Cancer is of following types- carcinoma is cancer of epithelial tissue. It is known as skin cancer.

• Melanoma is cancer of melanocytes present in skin. Sarcoma is cancer of mesodermal tissue and leukemia and lymphoma is cancer of hematopoietic cells.It is called blood cancer.

Detection of Cancer

• The cancer is detected by the histopathological study , known as biopsy.

• In biopsy, a piece of suspected tissue is cut and examined under microscope after staining.

• Radiography and computed tomography are used to detect cancer of internal body parts by using X ray.

• Monoclonal antibody against cancer specific  antigens are also used for detection of cancer. Resonance imaging is also used to detect the cancer of internal organs.

Read more about Monoclonal antibody and Interferon

Treatment of Cancer

• Cancer is treated by the surgery, Radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy.

• In surgery, the cancer cells are removed with help of surgery.

• In Radiation therapy, cancer cells are destroyed with the help of radiation by taking proper care of normal tissue surrounding the cancer cells.

• Under chemotherapy, cancer cells are killed by several chemotherapeutic drugs. These drugs has side effect like hair loss , anemia etc.

• In immunotherapy, A biological modifiers like alpha interferon are used which boost our immune system against cancers cells.