Recently a lot of my family and friends has either died or has been diagnosed with cancer. Does anyone know how tumors form, why they grow back after being removed. Why do you use radiation when radiation causes cancer? Is there anything out there that can help you preventing it?
Sorry you’ve suffered so much loss, Chubbs, but welcome to the SDMB.
I’m sure you realize that your question is enormous.
Here’s a link to a web site that might give you some answers, or at least the starts to some answers. As you will see when you follow it, there isn’t just one kind of cancer. I am not a doctor, but I am reasonably sure that there is no one answer to any of your questions; the answers will vary by type of cancer.
Good luck.
Disclaimers all around – I’ve worked in the field and my wife is a researcher, I just know what I’ve picked up.
At this time, there is no way to direct treatments towards just the cancerous growths. That will probably change within the next few years, there are some promising angles being explored. So the basic treatment philosophy is to try and hurt the body in such a way that the cancerous cells get hurt a bit more, and the body pulls through. In other words, your healthy cells might be injured, but they live, and the cancerous stuff doesn’t.
That is why they use radiation… by aiming it from different angles, they hope that the cancerous area will get more radiation than the surrounding areas.
Take this with a big grain of salt.
I’m a graduate student studying how radiation damages cells so I can help you with that question. The answer Muttrox is true but here’s a little more detail in case you were curious. Radiation kills cells by causing breaks in the DNA of the cells. Sometimes that causes enough damage to kill them outright. Much of the time however it is going through cell divison the causes the death, the chromosomes are not divided properly, chromosomes break apart, and basically the cells don’t have all the genes they need to survive. Cancer cells usually divide more rapidly than normal cells so cancer cells are more susceptible to the damage. Its a calcualted gamble. Your odds of survival with radiation therapy are much higher than without it, so they use it.
As for why they grow back when removed, usually it is because some of the original cancer was missed, and it simply grows back, or a few cells get into the bloodstream and lodge somewhere where they start to grow. Sometimes the conditions that formed the first cancer are still there and a new one forms, though that is rarer.
As for how cancers form, that is a huge question. The short version, cancers are caused by genetic mutations in normal cells. These mutations increase the cells ability to divide and eliminate the mechanisms that usually kills the cells when they start growing too fast. Thus you have cells that can’t stop growing and in solid tissues that forms a tumor.
As to what causes the mutations, could be many things and you’ll never know what for sure. Some are unlucky enough to be born with one, hence families with a history of cancer.
Can you prevent it? Eat healthy, stay fit, don’t smoke, and you’ve pretty much done all you can.
Hope that at least gives you an idea.