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Tissue can be organized in a continuous spectrum from normal to cancer. Often, the multiple genetic changes that result in cancer may take many years to accumulate. During this time, the biological behavior of the pre-malignant cells slowly changes from the properties of normal cells to cancer-like properties.
Illustration of how a normal cell is converted to a cancer cell, when an oncogene becomes activated. An oncogene is a gene that has the potential to cause cancer. [1] In tumor cells, these genes are often mutated, or expressed at high levels. [2]
Cancer cells are cells that divide continually, forming solid tumors or flooding the blood or lymph with abnormal cells. Cell division is a normal process used by the body for growth and repair. A parent cell divides to form two daughter cells, and these daughter cells are used to build new tissue or to replace cells that have died because of ...
Cancers are caused by a series of mutations. Each mutation alters the behavior of the cell somewhat. Cancer is fundamentally a disease of tissue growth regulation. For a normal cell to transform into a cancer cell, the genes that regulate cell growth and differentiation must be altered. [96] The affected genes are divided into two broad categories.
In addition, the oncoproteins independently induce genomic instability in normal human cells, leading to an increased risk of cancer development. [64] Individuals with chronic hepatitis B virus infection are more than 200 times more likely to develop liver cancer than uninfected individuals. [65]
In gliomas, a form of brain cancer, radiation therapy appears to select for stem cells, [113] [114] though it is unclear if the tumor returns to the pre-therapy proportion of cancer stem cells after therapy or if radiotherapy selects for an alteration that keeps the glioma cells in the stem cell state.
Woman had a partial molar pregnancy, a type of gestational trophoblastic disease. It eventually led to epithelioid trophoblastic tumor. A hysterectomy treated it.
Non-cancer cells die after a certain number of divisions. Mutant cells escape this limit and are apparently capable of indefinite growth and division (immortality). But those immortal cells have damaged chromosomes, which can become cancerous. Cells of the body don't normally have the ability to divide indefinitely.