How does cancer kill people?

Question

I mean I know that cancer is the uncontrolled growth of cells but what causes a body to die because of cancer? And also, has cancer always been around like in the 17, 18 hundreds? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

How cancer is developed how it kills -

Cancer develops when cells in a part of the body begin to grow out of control. Although there are many kinds of cancer, they all start because of out-of-control growth of abnormal cells. Normal body cells grow, divide, and die in an orderly fashion. During the early years of a person's life, normal cells divide more rapidly until the person becomes an adult. After that, cells in most parts of the body divide only to replace worn-out or dying cells and to repair injuries.

Because cancer cells continue to grow and divide, they are different from normal cells. Instead of dying, they outlive normal cells and continue to form new abnormal cells.

Cancer cells develop because of damage to Deoxyribo-nucleic acid (DNA). This substance is in every cell and directs all activities. Most of the time when DNA becomes damaged the body is able to repair it. In cancer cells, the damaged DNA is not repaired. People can inherit damaged DNA, which accounts for inherited cancers. More often, though, a person's DNA becomes damaged by exposure to something in the environment, like smoking.

Cancer usually forms as a tumor. Some cancers, like leukemia, do not form tumors. Instead, these cancer cells involve the blood and blood-forming organs and circulate through other tissues where they grow.

Often, cancer cells travel to other parts of the body where they begin to grow and replace normal tissue. This process is called metastasis. Regardless of where a cancer may spread, however, it is always named for the place it began. For instance, breast cancer that spreads to the liver is still called breast cancer, not liver cancer.

Not all tumors are cancerous. Benign (non-cancerous) tumors do not spread (metastasize) to other parts of the body and, with very rare exceptions, are not life threatening.

Different types of cancer can behave very differently. For example, lung cancer and breast cancer are very different diseases. They grow at different rates and respond to different treatments. That is why people with cancer need treatment that is aimed at their particular kind of cancer.

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the world.. Today, millions of people are living with cancer or have had cancer. The risk of developing most types of cancer can be reduced by changes in a person's lifestyle, for example, by quitting smoking and eating a better diet. The sooner a cancer is found and treatment begins, the better are the chances for living for many years.-

Answer 2

Cancer

Answer 3

Not all cancers are fatal and cancer at an early stage does not kill you, which is why early diagnosis can be so important - treatment is much more likely to be effective.

Generally speaking, if cancer spreads to take over a part of the body that performs an essential function this can kill you - it overwhelms the body, interfering with normal functions and slowly choking off the body’s supplies.
Untreated cancers may kill within months or may take years

For a detailed answer, see:

http://www.cancerhelp.org.uk/help/default.asp?page=2561

In answer to your other question, cancer has been around for much longer than that – throughout recorded history, in fact Some of the earliest evidence of cancer is found among fossilized bone tumours, human mummies in ancient Egypt, and ancient manuscripts.

The oldest description of cancer was discovered in Egypt and dates back to approximately 1600 BC:

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:m8RleCBKGdMJ:www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_6x_the_history_of_cancer_72.asp+%22history+of+cancer%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=uk

Answer 4

Cancer kills because cancer spereads to other parts of the body, deprives normal tissue of blood supply and changes the way body works in general.
Depending on the type of tissue from which cancer develops the ability to kill differs. For example, if a person develops cancer of bone marrow, bone marrow's function of production of blood cells is adversely affected and depding on the subtype of blood cell the effect will be seen.
If white blood cell prodcution is affected our immunity may be compromised and the person may die of infection rather than cancer.

Answer 5

How cancer kills depends on the type of cancer. Cancer comes in the way of the functioning of the vital organs of the body. Lung cancer can cause the lungs to dysfunction and disrupt your breathing whereas liver or bone cancer can throw your body’s chemical balance off gear, causing you to lose consciousness. Cancer also weakens your body’s immune system, making it susceptible to infections.

Answer 6

Cancer has always been around.

It kills by depleting the healthy areas of blood and by destroying healthy tissue which means that the organs can't function properly and they die, which ultimately kills the sufferer.

Answer 7

basically... it kills the cells of the body-for example, if you have lung cancer, the disease attacks the lung, deteriorates it and eventually it just dies.. if your lung dies, not a good sign

Answer 8

i think the chemo is what kills the most. i took chemo for 6 months and it kills all cells, good and bad. it causes more deaths than the cancer itself.