The moment you have a cancer diagnosis, everything in your life as dramatically changed for the worst You face something that is extremely emotional and physical. As daunting as breast cancer can be, knowing what to expect from diagnosis through treatment and recovery is empowering because knowledge = power. Learn about the basics of cancer, what causes it and its common treatment options along with self-care practices that can make you feel better all around through this extensive guide.
Overview
Cancer — an intricate disease that begins when normal cells change into cancerous cells. These are cells that grow rapidly, dividing in a disorderly manner and with the ability to penetrate any tissue where they settle. Normal cells get signals from genes that tell the cancer cell to grow and die, but not anymore.
Something we need to know is that cancer ranks near the top in fatalities worldwide. But improved early detection, new treatments and better prevention have pushed the survival rate sharply higher.
What Is Cancer?
Cancer is the name given to a collection of related diseases in which some of the body's cells begin to divide without stopping and spread into surrounding tissues. Unregulated, this is how tumors are formed in solid cancers or cancerous cells develop blood-cell leukemias. Cell division is usually controll ed by the genes in your body, but as these ge nes mutate or become damaged they lose their ability to regulate how cells grow, causing cancer. Some of the acquired ones will be inherited while others would have occurred during your time here on earth.
Types of Cancer
Cancer comes in more than 100 different types, but they can generally be broken into three overarching categories:
Solid Cancers: The most common types, representing up to 90% of cancer cases. These types are carcinoma, which begin in the cells that cover our internal and external body surfaces such as lungs, colon skin, breast etc., sarcoma arising from the bone or connective tissues.
Blood Cancers: Blood cancers appear in the blood cells or lymphatic system. Some of the examples include leukemia, lymphoma and multiple myeloma.
Complex Types- These fall into multiple classifications or subtypes. For example, carcinosarcoma and adenosquamous carcinoma
How Common Is Cancer?
Cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide. Millions of cancer diagnoses are expected each year in the foreseeable future, and a large number will eventually die from the disease. This is an obvious pointer to why women have the majority of diagnosed most non lifestyle related cancers which consist of breast cancer, lung cancer prostate and colorectal but also various bloods. The fact that here in the US were each have about a one-in-four chance developing cancer sometime during our lives?
Who Is at Risk?
Although cancer can develop in any type of individual, there are other factors—like your age, gender and race—that could increase the likelihood. Studies show that:
Older adults over 60 have an increased risk of malignancy.
There are some cancers which men will be more prone to develop than women due the simple fact those of us who were born assigned male at birth simply have a man's body.
Even within specific anatomic sites, the incidence of cancer varies by racial group (19) suggesting that multiple genetic-environmental interactions account for these variations.
Symptoms and Causes
How do the Symptoms Look Like?
Symptoms may vary greatly depending on the type of cancer and its stage. The general symptoms can be fatigue, fever, loss of appetite and weight loss for no reason or continuous painperustainable. Alterations in the skin, particularly growing or discolored moles may be indicative of skin cancer.
Organ-specific symptoms develop with general symptoms.
For example:
Lung cancer that may lead to coughing up blood or difficulty breathing.
Symptoms such as blood in the stool may mean you have colon cancer.
The thing is, the lumps or changes in breast tissue only occur when there can ALREADY be an advanced form of cancer.
Remember, presence of these symptoms does not necessarily mean cancer. But, you should speak with a healthcare provider if changes in your health last more than 2 weeks.
What Causes Cancer?
The main cause of cancer is genetic. Abnormal cell growth can result from changes in your genes, (called mutations). Some mutations are hereditary, passed down through generations; others arise spontaneously after birth due to environmental or lifestyle influences.
Common Risk Factors
Family History: Genetics plays a part in some cancers. Your risk might be higher if you close biological relatives have had cancer.
Lifestyle issues: in addition to smoking, poor diet and lack of exercise can increase your chances of getting cancer.
Environmental Elements: External factors like radiations, asbestos and pesticides can increase the risk of cancer.
Hormonal Imbalance — hormone therapies may increase the chances of some cancers like breast or uterine cancer.
Diagnosis and Tests
How Is Cancer Diagnosed?
Cancer is often difficult to detect early, making an accurate diagnosis the key to preventing cancer. Doctors diagnose cancer with physical exams, imaging tests (such as x-rays or CT scans), blood tests and biopsies.
You may also have a blood test, such as a full blood count (FBC) to see if there are any changes in your blood or tumour marker tests which can find chemicals made by cancer cells.
Imaging tests – CT, MRI and Ultrasound scans give detailed images of the inside body that also help in detecting tumors.
Biopsies: A tissue sample is removed and looked at under a microscope to see if cancer cells are present. Biopsies can be surgical or non-surgical depending on the situation.
How Is Cancer Staged?
It is important for treatment planning because cancer staging helps to evaluate the condition and severity of a disease. Cancers fall into four stages:
Early or locally advanced cancer that is only in the original site (stage I) Early or locally advanced cancer has spread to nearby tissues and lymph nodes (stage II-III)
Now stage IV, when cancer has spread to distant parts of the body (metastatic disease).
Management and Treatment
How Is Cancer Treated?
Your treatment for cancer will depend on the type, stage and location of your cancer, as well as on your overall health. Common treatments include:
Surgical procedure: Additionally referred to as resection and used for most types of a solid tumor.
Chemotherapy: Powerful drugs are used to target and kill cancer cells.
Use of Radiation therapy: It is used to kill cancer cells with high doses on radiation.
Immunotherapy: This makes the body's personal immune system struggle with cancer.
Targeted therapy: Targeted therapies are a newer type of cancer treatment that work by targeting specific genes or proteins in the cancer cells to fight as its growth.
Hormone therapy -- effective in cancers that are hormonally driven, like prostate and breast cancer.
Blood marrow transplant: Proficient in replacing the damaged blood stem cells with healthy ones, especially when it comes to cancers of the blood.
These treatments likely produce side effects and it is those adverse events that the TRIPOD device may actually be able to help alleviate. The key is to work with the medical community on how best these side effects can be handled so that people continue to have a quality of life while undergoing treatment.
Prevention
Can Cancer Be Prevented?
That being said, here are things that you can do to lower your risk of cancer:
Quit smoking: Among multiple cancers related to cancer, the risk of lung and oral type due to smoking.
Healthy Diet: Eating a well balanced diet that is high in fruits, vegetables and whole grains has been shown to help lower the risk of getting Cancer.
Exercise: Beyond ramping up your immune system in general and possibly lowering the risk of some cancers.
Stay away from environmental toxins: This means not to get exposed to harmful objects like pesticides, asbestos among other which lowers your chances of this cancer.
Outlook/Prognosis
What The Future Holds For Cancer?
Prognosis of cancer is dependent on these three parameters: Type Of Cancer, Stage At Which It Is Detected, And When The Body Has Literally Given Up But Starts Responding To Treatment. Cancer is of course a very serious diagnosis, but remission from cancer exists: symptoms recede if you are lucky and in some cases even vanish completely.
Partial remission: symptoms may improve, but the cancer is not gone.
Complete remission: Symptoms can completely disappear but may return later.
No two cancer experiences are the same, and treatment options have since changed to provide hope of survival for longer periods.
Cancer Survival Rates
Survival rates are numbers based on large groups of people who have had the disease, but they can not predict what will happen to any individual person. They offer actionable benchmarks, not a prescient forecast of the future.trailingAnchor (followed by query for more info) Medical professionals can provide a more personalized estimate of survival rates for your particular case.
Living With Cancer
How Do I Take Care of Myself?
Having cancer is a full-time health care job. Aside from medical treatments, you need to keep your emotional and mental well-being so as spirit. Yoga, meditation or reading, and talking to a therapist are activities that can help generate calmness.
When to see your healthcare provider?
During treatment, it is important to keep in contact with your health care team and report any side effects or symptoms you may be experiencing. Early conversation may help efficacy of treatment and ease.
Questions to Ask Your Doctor
If you or a loved one is diagnosed with cancer, it is important to be an info gatherer. Questions to ask include:
What cancer do I have?
What stage is my cancer?
What is best for me, and what can I expect?
