About Cancer

Cancer is a complex group of diseases with many possible causes. While there are more than 100 types of cancer, they all start when cells in a particular part of the body begin to grow out of control. Untreated cancers can cause serious illness and even death.

The body is made up of hundreds of millions of living cells. Normal body cells grow, divide, and die in an orderly fashion. During the early stages of a person's life, normal cells divide faster to allow the person to grow. After the person becomes an adult, most cells divide only to replace worn-out or dying cells or to repair injuries.

Cancer starts when cells in a part of the body start to grow out of control. There are many kinds of cancer, but they all start because of out-of-control growth of abnormal cells.

Cancer cell growth is different from normal cell growth. Instead of dying, cancer cells continue to grow and form new, abnormal cells. Cancer cells can also invade (grow into) other tissues, something that normal cells cannot do. Growing out of control and invading other tissues are what makes the cell a cancer cell.

To learn more about the different types of cancer, click here.

Cells become cancer cells because of damage to DNA. DNA is in every cell and directs all its actions. In a normal cell, when DNA gets damaged the cell either repairs the damage or the cell dies. In cancer cells, the damaged DNA is not repaired, but the cell doesn’t die as it should. Instead, this cell goes on making new cells that the body does not need. These new cells will all have the same damaged DNA as the first cell does.

Cancer can be treated in four ways:

• Surgery
• Chemotherapy
• Radiation therapy
• Biological therapy

Depending on the type of cancer a person has, doctors can use one form of treatment or they could use a combination of treatments. To learn more about treatments, click here.