7.2 Cancer

Question 1

What is a tumour?

Answer 1

mass of abnormally growing cells formed when normal control of cell cycle is lost and cells divide rapidly without growing and maturing.

Question 2

Describe what a benign tumour is?

Answer 2

Benign tumour grows in one place, is usually contained in a membrane, and does not spread to other tissues.

Question 3

What is a malignant tumour?

Answer 3

Malignant tumour spread to neighbouring healthy tissues and can also split, releasing small clumps of cells that spread around the body in the blood and invade different healthy tissues.

Question 4

How can benign tumour cause serious health problems?

Answer 4

Benign tumour can grow very large and compress/damage organs, which can be life‑threatening (e.g., brain tumour).

Question 5

How can Malignant tumour cause serious health problems?

Answer 5

Malignant tumour may split into pieces that are carried around the body in the blood or lymph where uncontrolled cell division continues to form secondary tumours.
These tumours disrupt normal tissue and often cause death if untreated.

Question 6

One of the most common method of treating cancers is chemotherapy. Chemotherapy drugs often affect other parts body, particularly hair follicles, skin cells, cells lining the stomach, and blood cells as well as the cancer cells.

Explain how the drugs in chemotherapy might work?

Answer 6

either stop cancer cells dividing,

or make them self‑destruct

Question 7

Suggest reasons why healthy hair, skin, blood and stomach lining cells are particularly badly affected by the drugs used to treat cancer?

Answer 7

Cancer drugs are designed to target rapidly dividing cancer cells.
They also tend to affect other rapidly dividing cells.
Cells of hair follicles, skin, stomach lining, and blood‑forming bone marrow are always dividing rapidly
so are more likely than other body cells to be affected by chemotherapy

Question 8

Cancer can be difficult to treat due to the way it can spread throughout the body.
Describe and explain the different treatments that are used to treat cancer?

Answer 8

1. Radiotherapy - when the cancer cells are destroyed by target doses of radiation. This stops mitosis in the cancer cell but can damage healthy cells
2. Chemotherapy- where chemicals are used to either stop the cancer cells dividing or to make them self-destruct. There are many different types

Question 9

List the lifestyle risk factors for various types of cancer.

Answer 9

• obesity
• common viruses
• UV exposure
• genetic risk factors