Cancer Flashcards
What is cancer?
A collection of different diseases
A malignant growth
What are the main characteristics of cancer?
Uncontrolled growth
Disrupted balance between cell division and differentiation
Disrupted balance between cell survival and apoptosis
Invasion and metastasis
What is a tumour?
An abnormal mass of cells, benign and malignant growth
What is a primary tumour?
Tumour at the initial site
What is a secondary tumour?
Tumour that spreads to other tissues and organs
What is carcinogenesis?
The process by which a normal cell is transformed into a malignant cell and repeatedly divides to become a cancer
What is neoplasia?
Formation of an abnormal mass of proliferating cells
What is anaplasia?
Lack of differentiation in neoplastic cells
What is aplasia?
Defective development resulting in the absence of all or part of an organ or tissue
What is metaplasia?
One differentiated cell type changing into another mature differentiated cell type
What is dysplasia?
Abnormality of development
Alteration in size and shape and organisation of adult cells
What is hypoplasia?
Underdevelopment or incomplete development of a tissue or organ
What is hyperplasia?
The proliferation of cells within an organ or tissue beyond normal
Gross enlargement
Benign tumour
What is hypertrophy?
Increase in the size of an organ due to an increase in cell size but not number
What is atrophy?
A decrease in the size of an organ caused by disease or disuse
What are the 3 risk factors of developing cancer?
Age
Lifestyle
Genetics
What are more than 40% of all cancers linked to?
Smoking Alcohol Diet Overweight Inactivity Infection Radiation Occupation Hormones
What are oncogenes?
Genes associated with the stimulation of cell division
Cancers result from only one mutant allele of a gene
What are tumour suppressor genes?
Genes associated with inhibition of cell division
Cancers require both alleles of the gene to be altered
Anti-oncogenes
What are three examples of oncogenes?
HER-2/neu
RAS
MYC
What are three examples of tumour suppressor genes?
p53
Rb
APC
What are the different cancer types?
Teratoma Carcinoma Sarcoma Leukaemia and Lymphoma Blastoma
How is cancer diagnosed?
Typical signs Screening Routing investigation Imaging methods Fibre optic scope Special investigations Surgical biopsy Genetic testing
How is cancer treatment determined?
How aggressive the tumour is
Mortability of patients from treatment procedures
Cure rate of treatment procedure
How is survival measured?
5 year survival with no recurrence
How is cancer treated?
Surgery Radiotherapy Chemotherapy Bone marrow transplants Immunotherapy Gene therapy Hormone therapy
