Cancer – A Killer Disease – Introduction and Types

Cancer is a dangerous disease in which certain cells in our body grow in an uncontrolled way. It is one of the world’s most serious illnesses. Together with heart attacks it kills more people than any other disease in the world.

The human body has blllions of cells. They are tiny elements of living material. Cells always reproduce themselves. Normally our body controls this process. It tells cells to divide themselves when we need it and to stop when we don’t. Sometimes, however, cell growth gets out of control and the production of cells doesn’t stop.

These cells that produce new tissue are called tumours. They can be benign or good tumours or malignant or bad tumours. A benigntumour usually stays in the same area in which it starts growing. It is often harmless. A malignant tumour however is dangerous. It can grow and spread to healthy cells and destroy them. Cells from malignant tumours can also spread to other parts of the body and produce more tumours. These malignant tumours are the ones that cause cancer and may even lead to death. Sometimes they enter the blood and lymphatic system. When this happens cancer metasizes. 

The lymphatic system

Types of cancer

There are over a hundred different types of cancer. Although it can strike people of all ages older people get cancer more often than younger ones. Cancer is not one single illness. It can attack all parts of the body and spread to other areas.

Among the most common types of cancer are:

• Bone cancer –most cases are caused by cancer somewhere else in the body

• Brain tumours – there are over a hundred different types, depending on the cells of your brain

• Breast cancer – the most common form of cancer in women around the world

• Bowel cancer – this form of cancer can be best treated if you detect it early

• Leukaemia – Blood cancer affects people of all ages groups

• Lung cancer – is one of the deadliest forms of cancer

• Prostate cancer – one of the most common forms of cancer that affect men of 50 and older

• Skin Cancer – can be avoided if you protect yourself from the sun’s harmful rays.

Unlike infectious diseases like AIDS or the flu cancer is not contagious – it does not spread from one person to another.

Words

• affect = to have an effect on
• although =while
• attack = hit
• avoid = to prevent something from happening
• benign = not dangerous
• billion = one thousand million
• bowels = system of tubes inside your body where food is transformed into waste and leaves your
• brain = the organ inside your head that controls how you feel and think
• certain = special
• common = widespread
• contagious = same as infectious
• depend on = you cannot say for sure
• destroy = damage completely
• detect = find
• disease = illness
• divide = split apart
• flu = an illness that makes you feel tires and weak; sometimes you get fever
• growth =increase
• harmful = dangerous
• harmless = not dangerous
• healthy = strong, and not ill
• however = but
• illness = disease
• infectious =something that can be passed from one person to another
• lymphatic system = clear liquid that is formed in your body and passes into the blood system to fight infection
• malignant = dangerous
• metasize = cancer cells spread to other parts of the body
• process = development
• prostate = the organ of a man that produces a liquid which carries sperm
• protect =guard , look after
• ray = a narrow line of light or energy
• reproduce = to make new ones
• serious = very bad
• single = only one, alone
• spread = to move from one place to another
• tiny = very, very small
• tissue = the cells that form different soft parts of your body